How to be Dead
by jambled
Summary: What if, for the sake of her friends' lives, Temperance Brennan has to learn how to be dead? Angsty, eventually BB.
1. Chapter 1

**Set through Season 2, before Bren breaks up with Sully. **

**Standard disclaimer goes here. **

**Please enjoy reading.**

It was getting too dangerous for her. Despite his warnings to _them_, his carefully placed bodies with their entrails exposed… _They_ were still closing in on her. He could sense the danger surrounding her as well as he had sensed it around her mother. But now he knew the quality of the danger had changed, and that deterring them would take more than just propping influential dead men, men from back then, alight over the city. Everyone who helped her on cases; the squints, her FBI partner, had all become pawns in a game that should have stopped as soon as it started. Nobody was safe anymore, at least as long as they stood between _them_ and her.

He'd seen the look that had flickered between her and Booth when he'd left her, reluctantly but for her own safety, her own sanity, handcuffed to the bench. There'd been something between them that was more than professional respect, more than knowing they had each other's backs. And as much as he knew of his daughter; the first fifteen years followed by everything he had tried hard to learn since then told him that if Booth, or any of her squints, were killed because of her she wouldn't be able to cope. The men he'd killed himself, the gaudy warnings, had given her pause. Strangers to her, these men without morals, but no less dead and no less killed than to keep her alive. And even those less significant killings had hurt her.

If the warnings he was reading were being interpreted correctly; the dark car that sometimes followed her when she was leaving work late, the men in black glasses who stood outside the Jeffersonian and pretended to talk on cell phones until they were called away from their posts, then his only daughter was in a far deeper danger than he'd imagined.

He couldn't face it anymore. He wasn't going to watch her killers draw the noose tighter, the way the net they'd cast around her mother had abruptly, sickeningly pulled so suddenly tight.

He wasn't going to watch her die.

Something had to be done.

xXx xXx xXx

She was working late again. The whole team was working late, again. A woman had been found in a storm drain that afternoon, after recent rain had coaxed her out. She was almost unrecognisable, flesh off more than it was on. Zack's preliminary tests showed that the hyoid bone was broken before a sharp implement had been used to score the flesh, probably to make it dissolve better in the water. Hodgins was working on the particulates that had been collected as evidence, to see if they could pinpoint where she had floated from to end up splayed at the end of Hanover street where the storm drains emptied their swollen stomachs into an empty lot that siphoned the water further down as it obeyed gravity and edged closer to the ocean. Lucky for them a bystander had been collecting algae readings for the government's ongoing promised water purification program and had called 911 as soon as his shaking fingers allowed it after the corpse had almost landed in his lap.

"Hodgins wanted me to give you this. He said he'll be in early in the morning to finish analysing the particulates found in her skull." Booth came into the room, almost filling the doorway. Brennan nodded. She was looking at x-rays Zack had taken. Their Jane Doe had been an avid squash player judging by wear on the bones.

"I've pestered the FBI records centre as much as I can for one night. Time to get some sleep so we can start looking for the killer tomorrow."

"I'm just going to finish up looking at these. Try to find out as much as I can about her so that when Ange matches up her face tomorrow we can be sure it's the right person."

"It's coming up to nine, Bones."

"Well since I don't have a hot date tonight, time is irrelevant." Booth smiled as Brennan switched x-rays and kept making notes.

"Bones makes a joke. I'll note the time."

"Actually I was being serious." She switched x-rays again. He paused.

"You and Sully hit a rocky patch?" She shook her head and looked at him over the x-ray.

"He and I are... Friends."

"Friends with benefits." Booth said.

"Angela says that a lot. I don't know what that means."

"Of course you don't." Booth smiled to himself as she looked back down. "See you in the morning?"

"Yeah. In the morning." She nodded, not looking up this time, sinking deeper into her world of reading the marks left behind for her, deciphering patterns that, to everyone else, seemed meaningless.

As Booth left the office he heard the phone ring and idly wondered who would be calling Bones at this hour. Whistling as he left the lab, Booth filed the phone call to the back of his mind. He was thinking up something to do with Parker that weekend. They'd done a boat show the last time and the aquarium before that. Maybe there was a ball game on somewhere.

"Brennan." She wondered who would call her this late. Booth or Sullivan were the only ones who gave her late night phone calls but Booth had just left after managing to gauge her relationship with Sully effectively; they _were_ going through a rocky patch. She didn't need anything more than intellectual conversation and sex. He wanted emotional attachment. It had been the same with Michael, David and Peter; they'd all wanted more of her than was on offer.

"Tempe, it's Russ." Brennan dropped the x-ray she'd been looking at and put both hands on the phone.

"Russ! Where are you? Are you all right? Where's Dad?"

"I'm fine, but I need to see you. There's not much time." He sounded as if he was talking from far away and she strained to hear.

"I can meet you somewhere. The diner?"

"I'm on my way to your house now."

"Okay, I'll see you in ten." Brennan hung up and shuffled the x-rays into an awkward pile on her desk before sweeping them into her drawer. She'd be in before anyone else tomorrow to finish working on them. She grabbed her coat and bag before digging out her phone, meaning to call Booth to tell him Russ had called. It bleeped once, wearily, before shutting itself down. She was going to put it on the charger this afternoon but had been caught up looking at remains. Maybe she could catch him on the way out.

"Damn." Throwing it back in her bag, she hurried down the stairs and past the lab. Zack was still bent over the bones but the light looked like it was off in Ange's office. She'd probably left with Hodgins.

"Zack, you can go home. We'll keep going tomorrow."

"Sure, Dr. Brennan." Zack said to her back. He secured the bones, switched off the lab lights and turned the secondary lab alarm on. Turning, he expected to see Dr Brennan standing at the door; they usually walked out together, talking about the case or the latest news in the forensic science journal. Instead, the exit was clear; obviously Dr. Brennan had been in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Brennan was whispering curses under her breath at drivers who, despite the moderately late hour, still felt they needed to drive under the speed limit. Booth would have called them 'driving Miss Daisy-ers' but Brennan didn't know what that meant. The general idea was the same.

She slipped into the bus lane and accelerated until she could get back into the lane, celebrating the fact that she'd decided on a car with some power. Getting into the turning lane, she made it through on orange and pushed the pedal down again. All she could think of was Russ. She'd known he would be safe with their father but she still hadn't gotten over the puddle of blood she'd found in her kitchen, acknowledging how much it had scared her to think she could lose more family. Before that case had ended, she'd found her father, then lost both of them in an ending that reminded her, again, that family wasn't something she was meant to have.

Pulling up outside, she bleeped the car shut and hurried upstairs. Nobody was waiting outside. She checked her watch. It had been at least twenty minutes since Russ had called. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside, reaching for the light switch. Before she could find it, there were stars and a sudden fade to endless black.


	2. Chapter 2

She felt the pain first, spreading across the back of her neck and down her spine. It wasn't the first time she'd been hit by a stun gun and the symptoms were the same; pain, and memory loss. She remembered saying goodbye to Booth and picking up another x-ray. She thought she might have answered the phone but she wasn't sure who had been on the other end.

"Tempe?" That voice was familiar, at least. She wondered if she was in hospital. But how had Booth called Russ?

"Russ?" She dragged her eyes open, feeling like she was swimming to the top of a murky, icy pool.

"How are you feeling?" He sounded sympathetic and she saw he was sitting beside her on the chair in her bedroom. She was lying on her bed, propped up with pillows.

"What happened?" She rubbed her eyes and put a cautious hand to the back of her neck, feeling two tender spots.

"We had to, Tempe. Dad'll explain everything. You just have to lie down."

"Dad's here? Booth's looking for him…" She swung her legs over the side of the bed but was stopped by the wave of dizziness that spun the room as well as Russ' hand on her shoulder.

"We didn't want to do it but we had to." Russ' voice was pleading, but his hands were still on her shoulders, holding her down as she tried to sit up again.

"Do what? You stun-gunned me? Russ what are you talking about?" She brought a knee up to his stomach and managed to wriggle out of his grasp. Running to the doorway she saw her father, surprised, turn towards her, a phone to his ear before, for the second time, the world darkened.

xXx xXx xXx

In a dark room blocks away, Booth awoke suddenly. He couldn't remember the dream he'd been having but he knew it would be something from his sniper days. He usually dreamt of long, cramped moments before he had to pull a trigger. Only problem was, his target would turn and it would be Bones' face looking at him from five hundred feet away, eyes sad but resigned to her fate. He always woke at the same moment; when he would inevitably, as trained, pull the trigger.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock; it was coming up to midnight. Sighing, he turned away from the glowing red numbers and tried to get back to sleep.

xXx xXx xXx

"Temperance." When she awoke this time, she couldn't move as freely. The soft rattle made her look to the side. Each arm was pinned around to the legs of the bed by chains. Her feet were tied together. She could feel the second shock of electricity still making its way down her spine.

"Temperance, I need you to look at me." She did. He looked the same as he had before; almost unrecognisable. She'd talked to him, faced him, shaken his hand and never once realised that he had been her father.

"I'm going to tell you why you're here and what's going on and I need you to trust that what I'm telling you is the truth."

"Great way to build trust." She softly rattled the chains.

"We couldn't let you get away. It's for your own safety. I'm going to take these off…" He took a moment to undo her feet before moving to her arms. Brennan rubbed her wrists with her fingertips. She'd obviously moved about while she was chained; raw ringlets circled her pale skin.

"So talk." Brennan said. Her father ran a hand through his hair and sighed, pulling the chair a little closer. She drew her legs up so she was sitting cross legged and was hit with a memory; her father sitting next to her bed reading a story to her while she softly fell asleep. She thought it had been _Picnic at Hanging Rock_.

"Russ didn't want to come with me."

"It seemed like he did when you both left me chained to the bench." She wasn't trying to accuse him, she was stating a fact. Russ had left without so much as a goodbye.

"He was doing what he knew was best. For Hayley and Emma. And Amy."

"His girlfriend?"

"And her children. Booth found the pictures of Russ, but he never found the ones of Amy and the girls."

"So they were hunting them as well?"

"Yes. Would probably have killed them first. Unless Russ disappeared, and everything he remembered disappeared along with him."

"You told him all this?"

"In your apartment, that night. He decided straight away that their safety was the most important thing to him even if it meant never seeing them again."

"But…" Brennan trailed off.

"These people we're dealing with… Booth thinks he knows how deep they go, but he doesn't. It isn't just the group from the '70s. It's been reborn in higher circles, Tempe. And slowly, they're getting rid of the traitors. But there aren't any morals any more."

"Morals for killing people?"

"Yes. That's why we left you and Russ all those years ago. It started to dissolve when they were coming after our children. Then it became everyone we'd ever known. Your mother wanted to take you with us… You don't know how hard it was for her, those two years. Never getting to see you. Scouring the news every day making sure you weren't in there."

"Then why didn't she come back?"

"Because that would have meant your death. We did the best we could, Temperance, to keep you alive. And I've succeeded so far, despite the fact that you put yourself in harms way every day with your job."

"You're criticising the way I live my life?"

"I'm just saying it hasn't been easy. You have to know I didn't want to kill those men, put them on the building. But I had no choice. It was a warning to them. But it was only a bandaid cure. I've known this day has been coming."

"What day? What are you talking about?"

"You've been Temperance Brennan for too long. They know where to look, and they know how to get to you. It won't be you they kill first; it'll be the people you work with; Booth. Past and current boyfriends."

"What?" Brennan felt her stomach constrict. Not her friends. Not Booth.

"Why do you think you have no family other than your grandfather? They got them all."

"Who's they?"

"They're the conspiracy keepers. The cleaners who make sure the public are ignorant in their knowledge of everything. It sounds like more than the truth, but it's not. You have to understand these people are dangerous, and they'll stop at nothing before they wrap up all the loose ends. You're a loose end. So am I, so is your brother. And anyone else from the old days who decided to fight against it, although we're becoming very few."

"So what are you telling me? I stop being myself?"

"You disappear." Brennan looked at him incredulously for a second before she shook her head.

"I can't just disappear. Besides, I have Booth-."

"You don't think his focus will waver a little after his little boy is killed."

"They'd kill Parker?" Brennan's hand went to her mouth.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. No one you know is safe as long as you're still near them."

"So if I don't do… What you're asking…"

"It's best if you do." Her father said softly. Brennan leant back against the head of her bed.

"Can't I just move… Work in a different country?"

"They'll start killing those you're closest to until you come back. You need to be dead in their eyes. If there was any other way, I'd offer it to you. I left you as long as I could because you seemed happy there."

"I was." Brennan said simply.

"What's to stop them killing… the people I love… if I do just disappear?" Her father looked grim.

"You'll learn how to be dead. You'll effectively neutralise yourself against them. In this case your job is working for you; they'll assume it was a pissed off criminal getting back at you. That's why I need you to fill these." Her father put two blood collecting bags and a pressure cuff on the bed between them. Temperance looked at them before slowly reaching out to take the sterile needle he handed over. She'd donated blood before, and she was sure she could find a lateral vein but the amount of blood he wanted would make her weak.

"I know it's a lot. We need it to be convincing." He shrugged helplessly and they both turned as Russ came in.

"He's here." He said. Her father stood, reached out a hand to Brennan's shoulder. She moved away and he paused, dropping his hand, passing Russ on the way out.

"You believe him?" She asked her brother. He ignored the chair and sat next to her on the bed.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't. I'd be back with Amy…" There was a wistful note in his voice and Brennan realised he'd had to give up his life as well, because of who their parents were, what they did. To keep those he loved safe. History was repeating, it seemed.

"Who's here?" Brennan asked, motioning towards the door.

"It's some guy Dad knows. He called him earlier. We're getting new passports. New lives. Again. You're lucky you can't remember the last time we changed."

"How far does this group go? Can't we just research them, tell the FBI, get them taken off the streets?" Russ shook his head.

"They're _in_ the FBI. Dad got Kirby, but there'll be more."

"So, what? We just stop our lives?"

"We've got no choice, Temperance!" Russ' voice came out louder than she'd expected and Brennan flinched.

"Do you want them to kill Booth or Angela? Or Booth's son? Do you think you'll be able to live with yourself? I know you feel helpless." He reached for her hand. "I don't like it either. But this is our father. He's been trying to protect us our whole lives. He's just doing what he thinks is best. I think we've got to trust him on this." Brennan gave his hand a squeeze back.

"New passports. From now on I'm James Parker." Their father appeared with two passports in his hand and a paper bag. Brennan opened her passport and found a driver's licence and a social security card tucked inside.

"Rowan Smythe." She read, then shifted her eyes to the picture. "I'm not blonde."

"The bag." Her father said. She dug around and pulled out a packet of bleach, sighing. Digging a little further she found clippers to cut Russ' (now Joseph's) hair and dark grey contacts.

"You'll have to wear them at all times."

"Where are we going to go?" Russ asked, putting his passport down on his lap.

"Different places."

"You're splitting us up again? We only just found each other again."

"I'm sorry, Rowan. Sorry for more than you realise. But this is the only way it can be done. You'll have to do your hair, then get the blood."

"Can't we use our names around each other?" Brennan asked. Her father shook his head.

"First rule of con; believe your own lie. You've got a flight at twelve, but we've got to get out of here before that." She looked at the clock; it was barely four AM. She'd been unconscious for most of the night.

"Where am I going?"

"There's a man meeting you at the airport. He needs to run as well; it's not just us we're after, which is why they will be pleased you've been taken off the agenda. It's much harder to hide the murder of an international bestselling author than a nobody."

"Murder victims are never nobodies, Dad." He paused at her words and shook his head.

"I know. I'm sorry." It was turning into a morning of apologies for him.

"There're notes in your bag. You should read them on your flight."

"Can I... say goodbye to anyone?"

"No. There's no nice way to say this, but you need to be dead to them. Or it's them who will die." Brennan felt tears threatening as she looked over at the man who had already changed her name once in her lifetime.

"I'll let you make one call before you go. Just to say goodbye." Brennan looked across at the pictures of her with her friends that were around her bureau. The one that caught her eye was taken at a Christmas party photo. One of Booth's arms was around her waist and she was smiling at him. Angela, Zack and Hodgins looked giggly; they'd somehow managed to spike the punch again. Suddenly, she needed a guy- hug from Booth.


	3. Chapter 3

"Has anyone heard from Bones?" Booth swiped his card at the bottom of the lab stairs and walked up, looking puzzled as both Hodgins and Zack shook their heads.

"Not since she told me to go home last night. She said she'd be in this morning, though." Zack picked up another bone and put it under the microscope.

"Seeley." Cam gave him a smile as she saw him coming down from the lab and he managed a weak one in return. His Bones-sense was telling him something was wrong. She was barely ever late to work and if she was, she still had her mobile on. He'd been calling since early this morning but the automated message kept telling him the person he was trying to reach was unavailable.

"Hey, Cam. Listen, have you seen Bones this morning? Heard from her?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing. She's never late. She's usually here before the rest of us." Booth nodded and she trailed him down to Angela. He stepped into the room and winced as the sound of breaking bones filled the silence.

"Ange, have you heard from Bones?"

"Nope. Thought she was with you this morning. She's never this late… Except… Well…" Angela paused the holograph so the sounds were, blissfully, stopped.

"What?" Booth asked.

"Last time she was late it was because she was with Michael."

"Who's Michael?" Cam asked from the doorway. Angela looked past Booth to see her.

"Bren's old university professor. Now there was a flame that never really burned out. Well, until the two-faced bast-."

"So you haven't heard from her?" Booth cut in to ask. Bones had told him she was without plans that extended beyond trying to identify a victim. He remembered the phone call; it could have been Sullivan. Or someone else. Angela shook her head.

"Dr. Brennan slept with her university professor?" Cam asked. Booth shot her a look and she shrugged and retreated.

"Let me know if you hear from her."

"You think something's wrong?" Angela's voice was sounding concerned.

"I don't know yet. Do you have a key to her apartment?"

"Yeah, of course." Angela sorted through the few keys on her keychain until she came across the right one. Slipping it off the loop, she handed it over.

"Let me know what's happening, okay? I want to know how worried I should be getting."

"Sure. And thanks, Ange." Booth walked out of the room and flipped his phone open, pressing a number on speed dial.

"I need phone records for the Jeffersonian, specifically the line for Dr. Temperance Brennan. A call came in last night. Her extension is ."

xXx xXx xXx

Russ had shaved his head, but Brennan was still sitting on the bed, staring at the photo. The blood bags remained unfilled and the peroxide was still in its box. Her father looked in the door and narrowed his eyes.

"Rowan?" She looked up at him.

"It's Temperance." He had manila folder in his hands and he hesitated before holding it out to her.

"It's what I've managed to collect so far. The person behind it, I haven't found." She opened it and bit her lip as familiar faces met her; Rebecca meeting a man for coffee. Angela and Hodgins, walking down a street, arms linked. Booth getting out of his FBI issued car. Zack walking out of the Jeffersonian at night. And at the back Parker, sitting on a carousel.

"I told you. It's not just you, like it wasn't just your mother and I they were hunting."

"Who are these people? Booth's FBI; he can find things out. That's what he does. He can find out who's been doing this and put them away." Her father shook his head slowly and picked up the pictures from the floor where Temperance had thrown them.

"Is that before or after the mother of his child is killed? Before his son is murdered?" Temperance choked back a sob and studied her father. He looked calm but time couldn't take away the fifteen years she'd seen him every day. In his eyes, she saw the fear he was trying to keep hidden.

"I didn't want to do it to you, Tempe. But now I've told you everything, you've got a choice. You can call Booth to come get you and arrest me and you can wait for the day when a bullet goes through his son's brain, or when someone catches Angela late at night when she's walking to the parking lot. Or you can follow through with the plans I've put in place to make sure everyone thinks Temperance Brennan is gone for good."

xXx xXx xXx

"I don't know where she is. I haven't seen her since last weekend. We went out to dinner Saturday then she stayed at my place. She left Sunday afternoon." Sullivan was in his office. As most FBI offices, it was messy to the point of distraction.

"You didn't call her last night?"

"Nope. I wanted to, but… We were having problems."

"Fighting?" Booth asked immediately. He was dismayed at the coil of joy ready to unfurl in his stomach.

"Not so much. I wanted to know more about her. She preferred to keep me at arm's length, emotionally anyway. I think if you know a person long enough, sleep with them, certain boundaries can be crossed. Tempe didn't agree.

"I talked to her Wednesday night on the phone. We were almost at the point of agreeing to disagree." He shrugged. "Why are you asking me these questions, anyway, Booth. Is Tempe okay?"

"I don't know. Give me a call if you hear from her." Booth was honest. She might have just overslept. She might have been called out to one of her top secret assignments, although he'd assume that Cam would have been notified if that was the case. Then again, there was the chance she'd been kidnapped; it had happened before.

"I want to help, Booth. I'm crazy about her. Just tell me what to do!" Sully called after him. He gave a wave of acknowledgement over his shoulder and answered his phone as it rang.

"Booth." Leaving the office, he nodded at an agent who was passing by. They'd worked on a drugs case in vice a few years back, and he'd been glad it was that guy who'd had his back.

Grabbing a pad and pen out of his pocket and pressing a button on the lift, he wrote down the number that was given to him.

"Yeah, thanks." Hanging up on the FBI agent who'd gained the number that had been inbound on Bones' line, he dialled it. An automated message told him the number had been disconnected. The queasy feeling in his stomach intensified. His Bones' sense was on full alert.

xXx xXx xXx

"Hey." Russ had changed into a suit but still looked slightly uncomfortable with the tie. His face looked thinner from the scalp-close hair cut. Brennan had to admit her father did know how to change the look of people. She'd just dried her hair after washing the peroxide out and, even without the contacts in, she almost looked like a different person.

She nodded at him and tilted her head back as she slipped in one of the contacts. Blinking back involuntary tears, she slipped in the other one and looked in the mirror. The grey in the contacts was dark and she blinked at herself. Her eyes were usually much lighter and she was finding it unusual for the reflection looking back at her to be so different. She looked down at her right arm as it gave a twinge of pain. She'd filled one bag already, and the faintness was starting to set in.

"Where are you going?"

"California. There's someone there, too, a safe house."

"Guess these people are everywhere." Russ nodded as she carefully walked to the bed, sat.

"Guess so."

"Where's Dad going?" Brennan asked. Russ shrugged and rubbed a hand over his hair.

"He wouldn't tell me. He'll be around, I'm sure."

"This is just so wrong. How can he just uproot our lives like this, again?" Russ shrugged as Temperance pulled forward a strand of her blonde hair, looked at it.

"You know, I get that you're mad. I didn't believe it either when he came to me. But it's what's best for the people we love. And we know how much you loved your job and the people you work with, which is why Dad left it so long for you. But there are things beyond our control Temp- Rowan. And there's nothing we can do about something this big except try and protect the people we love."

"And if we have to disappear to do that…" Brennan sighed and Russ shrugged.

"Yeah."

"Time for your call." Their father came in with a cell phone and handed it to her. She took it with her left hand.

"Five minutes." Her father said. Brennan nodded, turned to Russ who was leaving the room to give her some privacy.

"Did you call Amy?"

"Yeah… I told her that I had to go away, that she should forget me and find someone else… Of course, I won't have anyone looking for me the way you will." He motioned towards the blood draining from her arm and sighed. "Just remind yourself that you have to do this. For them. That makes it a little easier." Brennan nodded as he left and looked at the phone. She usually asked Angela or Booth what the right words were; without them, she wasn't sure what she should say. How do you say goodbye to the people you love and try to convince them not to find you?


	4. Chapter 4

She'd wanted to pack more things, but her father had told her not to make it obvious that clothes were missing. She knew he was right; if Angela looked through her wardrobe, she'd be able to see what was gone straight away. Her hands had hovered over the dolphin belt buckle that had been her mother's before her father told her quietly she had to leave it. Turning to zip up her bag, she didn't miss her father fingering the faded metal quietly. She wasn't sure why, but it made her feel that her actions now weren't going to be in vain. She knew it would hurt a lot of people; Angela and Booth the most, but she knew, too, that it was for their own good.

Fighting a wave of dizziness, she picked up the bag and left her room. She was leaving separately to Russ and her father. She wasn't sure that Booth hadn't assigned someone to check on her occasionally, make sure her father didn't come back.

"I'll miss you." Russ was waiting for her near the door and she gave a weak smile. He'd left her when she was fifteen, and again ten years later. He'd stun-gunned her as well, but she'd mostly rationalised that in her mind already. Even after all the leaving, the broken promises when they were younger, the moments she'd found herself in a bad foster home and had wondered what went wrong and why her big brother wasn't there to rescue her… Even after everything, she'd miss him as well.

"Stay safe." He whispered as they hugged and she nodded, stepped back. Her father pulled a hat down over her newly blonde hair and held her arm as a wave of dizziness made her knees weaken.

"I'm sorry, kiddo." Her father pulled her into a hug and she stood rigid for a moment before letting herself relax, finally reaching an arm up to hug him back.

"I know." She picked up her bag in her left hand, still favouring her right. Sighing, she opened the door and stepped over the threshold.

She didn't look back as she left; places were only places. It was the people in them who made them something more than inanimate, and she didn't want to see her father starting to spread her blood around her apartment, making it look like she'd been slaughtered.

xXx xXx xXx

He was standing outside her apartment, waiting for a response to his knock when his cell rang.

"Hey, Cam."

"Have you found anything yet? Angela's about to send out a search party."

"I'm about to check her apartment. Her car's still here, though. I'll be back there soon." He applied the key to the lock but paused to finish the conversation with Cam.

"Zack's gone as far as he can on the victim without Dr Brennan's input. We think it was an impulse killing. Hodgins' analysed the particulates and we've narrowed the killing ground down. The weapon is most likely still there, unless the killer was stupid enough to take it with him. We'll have the file ready for you when you come in."

"Okay. Thanks." Booth flipped his phone shut, losing the details Cam had given him about the victim straight away. At the moment, his concern was Bones and where she was. He opened the door, blinking, owl like, as his eyes fought to adjust. The curtains were drawn tightly shut, and it was surprisingly dark. The furniture in her lounge room was nothing more than muddy shapes that his eyes strained to see. He flipped on the light and felt his stomach strain suddenly to release everything he ate for breakfast. Fear coursed through him like sour adrenaline and he took a step forward, drawing his gun as an impulse reaction even though some other sense was telling him it was too late.

After checking the apartment and feeling a renewed sense of fear every time a new doorway exposed a battered and bloody room, Booth forced himself to stand in the middle of the lounge room and just breath. He flipped open his phone and called into the FBI, needing agents to secure the scene. Then he called the Jeffersonian.

When no one picked up, he checked the number. Predictably, he'd dialled Bones' private line. He put a momentary hand to his forehead as his breath grew ragged in his chest. Of course she wasn't answering; she wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere, but her blood was everywhere.

"Cam, it's Booth." He finally managed to redial the lab.

"Booth. What's wrong?" She must have picked up on his tone.

"I need you, Zack and Hodgins at Bones' apartment. You might not want to bring Angela." He'd called it in as a kidnapping so that he knew the FBI would handle the investigation.

"Is there… A body?" There was a slight beep in his ear telling him an incoming call had just been diverted to voice mail.

"No. Just a lot of blood. And hopefully some other clues you guys will be able to find."

"Okay, we'll see you soon." She disconnected and Booth carefully stepped around the smears of blood on the floor to open the door. His phone beeped, louder, telling him the voice message was ready to listen to. He dialled in while he looked up and down the empty hallway, waiting for the agents he'd ordered to arrive.

Her voice in his ear made him pause and slide to the floor, leaning against the edge of the doorway.

xXx xXx xXx

Her father had told her to try and keep her head down at the airport. Stay away from cameras. Avoid eye contact. He'd bought boots for her, Rowan shoes, and they were higher than she was used to wearing. She couldn't help but admire his cleverness; she had to adjust her walking style because of them. She still couldn't use her right arm, and her movements were less sure with her left. It was obvious he'd done his homework; he knew there was a program that could track a person using algorithms based on their movement.

Her father had told her, too, while she was packing, that there'd be a man meeting her at the airport who would be flying out with her as her husband; Scott Smythe. He'd obviously been given a photo of her before their flight and had met her as she walked from the check in desk with a phoney greeting and a quick kiss.

If Booth, or the men her father was trying to keep her away from, were to do a search on single women flying out today, the name Rowan Smythe wouldn't raise a flag.

She was waiting in the lounge, her 'husband' sitting in a chair across from her, reading a newspaper as if this was something he did every day. He looked up briefly to give her a reassuring smile and she smiled back. The phone her father had given her earlier she'd kept with her, still unused. She'd spent her five minute time limit thinking about what she could say; how she could end a friendship that had meant more to her than any other lasting relationship in her life. How she could walk away from Angela, Zack and Hodgins as well. What she could say to try and explain it to them without giving everything away and ruining all the painstaking planning her father had put into action the minute he'd had Russ summon her to her apartment.

She was a woman of science, not words, but there was nothing scientific in what she was doing; walking out of one life and into another, leaving everything behind. The only rationality was that she was saving them, these people she loved.

Flipping open the phone, Temperance dialled in the number that was most familiar to her and waited. His message bank recording greeted her and she felt slightly relieved; had he answered he might have been able to talk her out of it. This way, she could say what she needed without interruption.

xXx xXx xXx

"Hey Booth, it's me. I… I have to go away, and I have to ask you not to look for me. I can't tell you why and I can't tell you where, but… Just tell everyone I'm sorry… Tell Ange I'll miss her and I love her. And tell Zack and Hodgins that it was a privilege working with them." He heard her sigh carry over the phone, felt resignation in the deliverance of it. There was another moment of pause before she continued.

"Booth? If our friendship has meant anything to you, you won't try and look for me. Just… Forget me, okay? I'm dead to you now." He heard a muffled voice in the background, and her reply to it before she continued.

"I'm sorry. I can't explain. I'm so sorry." He could tell from the roughness of her voice that she was close to tears. He'd seen her cry before, and he'd always been amazed at how crystalline her eyes became when they were filled with tears. Brennan wasn't just beautiful when she cried; she was breathtaking.

"Jesus, Bones." He whispered, before pressing the number that would call the number that had called him. Predictably, three tones bleeped in his ear before an automated voice began telling him the number no longer existed.

xXx xXx xXx

"Enjoy your flight, Mr and Mrs Smythe." The man who took their tickets gave her a kind smile, and she smiled back. No doubt his parents were of the average, suburban variety. Not bank robbers whose children had been forced to flee their lives and leave behind everyone they cared about because of a secret society muffling anything they might not be able to control from behind the scenes.

Scott had told her their flight was boarding midway through the phone call before waiting for her to hang up. He'd taken the phone and quickly disassembled it before throwing it in separate bins. He'd followed her onto the plane, smiling and nodding at the other passengers. Brennan still felt empty. A day ago she'd been trying to find out who the girl from the storm drain had been. Now she was unemployed and barely existed. She knew nothing about Rowan Smythe; where she was meant to have grown up, how old she was, when she'd married the man sitting next to her.

Finding her seat, she pulled the folder she'd been instructed to read out of her carry on bag. If she was going to have to do this, she was going to do it right. Settling in and crossing her legs, she opened the first page and began to memorise everything.


	5. Chapter 5

"Oh my god." Cam walked into Brennan's apartment after being let through by the FBI agents and dropped the bags she'd been carrying. She caused a pile-up at the door as Hodgins and Zack strained to see in past her. Booth had been pacing, running a hand through his hair, but he walked over to them, poised to talk.

"Oh." Angela's soft, sad exclamation stopped him as she appeared at the edge of the doorway and he looked accusingly at Cam.

"Come on, Seeley. You tell me not to bring her and what's she going to do?"

"She's not dead, Ange. I don't know where she is, or who took her, or who the blood belongs to, but she left a message on my phone." Booth's words were in a rush, tripping over each other as he struggled to stop the tears that filled Angela's eyes. Hodgins reached for her hand and Booth motioned them all further inside as he reached into his pocket for his phone to replay the message.

"What does she mean 'I'm dead to you now'?" Zack looked confused and Angela leant against the counter. Her tears were still unshed, but had intensified when her name had been mentioned on Booth's cell.

"It means she's not coming back. Look at this place. Whatever happened here…"

"Angela, how good are you at manipulating sound?" Booth interrupted her, not wanting her to voice her feelings. He didn't think he could take it right now.

"I can treat the sound waves like an image. I can enhance parts of it." She shrugged slowly as Booth handed over his cell phone.

"Try and clear up the other voice. See if you can get what it says. We can't assume anything, but last time Bones was kidnapped it was because of the case she was working on."

"You really think that's just it. She's been kidnapped… Because, Booth-."

"I know, Angela. But it's the best I can do. And it's the only way the FBI can keep this investigation."

"Jack, go with her. If you get time, can you find out what you can about the other body. Zack x-rayed dental this morning, there might be a match." Hodgins nodded at Cam and led Angela from the room.

"Zack, we'll need pictures of everything and samples from all the blood. Take enough images to let Angela create a schematic of the room." Zack got out the camera and started doing a slow pirouette of the room, the flash going off like lightning every few seconds.

"I assume you'll get the FBI crime lab to look over this as well." Booth nodded at Cam.

"You guys get first look in. CSU will filet me for it but if anyone is going to find a clue, it'll be the squints." Cam nodded briskly.

"We're going to do what we can. I know what Brennan means to you, Seeley." Cam touched his arm briefly before dodging the lens of Zack's camera to walk towards Bones' bedroom. Booth watched her go and gave a sigh. He wasn't sure she knew the extent of it; that just being here, in the room where they'd eaten Thai food, where she'd crouched over him to put out the fire her exploding refrigerator had set him on, where they'd told each other things that had been confined to this room and each other. That remembering all this, but seeing it overlaid with drying blood, was making him want to do nothing more than curl up and focus on reversing time so that he would have stayed with her, working late, in the lab that night.

xXx xXx xXx

By the time their flight landed, Temperance had memorised everything. She'd grown up in Montreal, Canada but had dual citizenship. Her parent's were both deceased after a horrible car accident on a snowy Canadian mountaintop and she had been their only child. She'd studied languages at a university in Canada and, at twenty-five, had married Scott Smythe and given up her job as a translator. She took occasional jobs translating but was, for all intents and purposes unemployed, happily married and a world away from what she had been.

They passed through the bustle of the airport; two strangers walking together, as she followed him out into the cold sunlight to find a cab. He loaded her small bag in the back while she slid into the back seat.

"Where to?" The cab driver asked her. He had an accent but she couldn't pick it; New Zealand, maybe. She remembered the address as Scott slid in beside her.

"1225 Monterey Lane."

"No worries." The driver checked his mirrors before he pulled out and Temperance readjusted her opinion as she looked out the window at the unfamiliar city. He was definitely Australian.

xXx xXx xXx

"She left the message _after_ Booth found her apartment like that. And god knows Brennan can fight back." Hodgins was trying to cheer Angela up on the drive back. She was holding Booth's cell phone loosely and looking out the window. She looked across to him briefly before turning back to the window and he could tell he wasn't helping.

"I met her when we were twenty-two. She was in a bar in Italy, some guy was hitting on her. I don't think she ever really knew that she looked like that. Turned out the guy who was hitting on her was the guy I was meant to be meeting there for drinks. She got rid of him by practically spraining his wrist and I bought her a drink. She was like no one I'd met before." Angela looked down at her hands.

"My dad being who he is, I've met a lot of interesting people. But Bren was just different. She was so _fearless_. And she'd already been through so much, even then. I just… I wish I'd known more about her. Ten years of being friends didn't even start to cover the things she still had to tell me."

"There'll be more. Booth will find her." Hodgins covered Angela's hands and she looked up at him, shaking her head.

"I don't think he will. This time… It's different. I can't explain it but I can feel it." Angela leant forward and accepted the hug that was offered, her tears soaking Hodgins' shoulder.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth looked around the squints as they all sat, slumped, on the couches and chairs in Angela's office.

"We know the blood's hers. But we know she was still alive when she called Booth, which means, despite the blood, she survived." Cam was the voice of reason amongst them, stating facts in a calm voice. Booth almost hated her for being unruffled.

"Ange, can you play the sound bit you got off my phone again." They'd listened to it so much Both was convinced the data would wear out. But the noise came out of the speakers again, strong and clear. It was the voice in the background that had been muffled. The voice was sounding almost familiar to Booth merely because he'd heard it so often in the past few hours.

"Hon, time to go. They called our flight."

Then Bones' voice soon after.

"Okay, coming."

To Booth's ears there was no coercion, no gun held to her head. He had tried so hard to convince himself otherwise every time he listened, but was failing miserably.

"I've got a search running on tickets that were for the last few hours' worth of flights; single women and couples. And I made a quadratic equation of Dr Brennan's movement from security tapes here that Angela input into a visual searching program, as well as a facial recognition scanner." Booth rubbed his hands through his hair as Zack spoke.

"I don't know what that means, Zack." The irony of his words remained unacknowledged.

"It'll search all the tapes for anyone who moves similar to Bren. Anyone who walks like her, looks like her. It's set at ten percent . If we don't get a hit, I'll have to rescale the similarity percentage." Angela's tears had dried up as she'd steadfastly gotten to work but they were still close to the surface; Booth could hear the emotion in her voice.

"Has anyone come up with anything new on the body?"

"Our Jane Doe is called Marcella Mardon. Squash player. 32 when she disappeared two months ago. DNA and dental both match." Hodgins handed Booth a file and he took it, flicked through quickly. He couldn't see anything that would have made Bones so abruptly vanish.

"So far evidence shows that her neck was snapped as someone tried to strangle her. You're looking for a left handed person, probably a male." Zack filled in what he knew and Booth ran a hand over his face before he stood.

"I'll get some agents to inform the family and take over on this. You guys keep working on…" He couldn't bring himself to call Bones' apartment anything but that, but acknowledging it as the crime scene would make it feel too much of a reality. The squints nodded, began moving to their own workstations. Booth walked quickly towards the entrance, willing his eyes not to find her empty office. But they did. And it was still so empty.

xXx xXx xXx

She'd picked up the phone to call Booth more times than she could remember; it had become a reflex action. Pick up the phone, remember the photographs of Parker, put the phone back down.

The last week had been the longest they'd been apart since she'd met him. Every night at midnight she'd wake, expecting to hear the sound of someone hammering on her apartment door as best they could with an armful of chinese food. Then she'd remember she wasn't in her apartment, wasn't even in the same state, and she'd shut her eyes tightly and try to remember the things that were fading away; Booth's voice, the way Angela always flung herself into furniture, the few times she'd made Zack laugh, Hodgins' perverse comments. There were endless lists of things they'd done, the friends she missed so much but that she'd left to protect.

Then her eyes would tear at the futility of it; why was she trying so hard to remember something she could never return to.

xXx xXx xXx

"Booth, have you ever thought she really doesn't want to be found. That there wasn't a gun to her head, that she chose to walk away." As usual, Angela managed to be a voice of reason amongst the suppositions. Booth rubbed his eyes and leant on the angelator.

"I don't think I could handle that thought." He said flatly, eyes still closed. It had been a long, frightening week. He could count the hours of sleep he'd gotten on one hand; on one finger.

"Maybe it was the best choice she had. It's been a week, and we've usually got more than this. But there's nothing. There's Brennan's blood, but she's not dead. There's an overturned apartment, but no definite signs of struggle and there's a phone call that was obviously not scripted. It might be time to let her go."

"It's Bones, Angela! I can't just let her go!" Booth suddenly exploded, raised his voice, stood. Ange waited for him to slump back down before she spoke again, her words also louder.

"And you think I want to? Bren was my best friend in the world. There's nothing I couldn't say to her, nothing that would make her judge me. She was my person, Booth." He nodded silently as her words sank in. He knew how much Brennan had meant to Angela. But he also knew Bones had been his person as well, and he couldn't give up as easily.

"Are you still running the searches on the airport." Angela nodded as Booth turned to leave. Her voice made him pause.

"There's something you should know… Hodgins, Zack and I are handing in out resignations at the end of this month. We'll never stop looking, Booth, but… Not here. I can't come in every day and see her office… Without her." Wordlessly, Booth nodded. He'd been expecting it. Without their fearless leader, the squints were rudderless. Bones hadn't realised it, but if Angela had been the heart of the operation, she'd been the body, holding them all together.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six Months Later**

He needed a new vice to take up the hours he spent without her there, but nothing would do her justice. He'd retried gambling; it hadn't worked out for him. And it reminded him too much of her; that little black dress with the red lipstick, the way she'd slapped his hand away from the keno.

Drinking, he'd tried, almost immediately after she left but the alcohol wasn't enough to drown out the thoughts of her and why she was gone. All he got from it was a pounding head the next morning and too many empty bottles in his recycling. Empty bottles weren't enough to signify the space she left.

Cullen had reassigned him after the squints had relinquished the Jeffersonian to Cam. He had no reason to ever go into the building again. Sometimes he drove past it, slowing down to see the fountain outside the majestic doors that didn't betray the empty exterior. Because without her, the building meant nothing.

He wondered who had cleaned out her office, whether Angela had done it before she left or whether it was Cam who'd taken her possessions. He should have done it, should have sucked it up and put her life into boxes that would sit, gathering dust, at her apartment. But he'd declined to do anything other than agree with Angela that a cleaning crew was necessary for Brennan's apartment. And to sign a form with her publishers that rerouted the money she made from her book into an account that would pay the upkeep on the apartment. He liked to think it was there, waiting for her until she got back. In probability, it was going to be there until the money ran out. Judging by the bolstered book sales from newspaper headlines that had followed her disappearance eagerly before pronouncing her as good as dead meant the money wouldn't come to an end anytime soon. But if it did, Booth had already started to make an allowance for her apartment, should he ever need to contribute. It was his place now, where he could remember her. Instead of finding it depressing, he found it comfortable. Every now and then his mind would replace the freshly scrubbed look with a brief flashback of what the blood had been like, but for the most part it made forgetting her seem less likely.

xXx xXx xXx

She'd started out by not talking to him, but rationalised that it wasn't his fault. He was in the same position as her; torn away from everything he knew to reside in a house that didn't feel like home with a stranger he was supposed to be married to. They'd discussed it on a Thursday night. He'd been cooking while she popped the tops off several beers. They both drank every night, beer, vodka, rum; numbing themselves until they fell asleep in their respective bedrooms.

"Did you know who I was before you met me?" She asked. Scott slid an omelette out of the pan and onto the plate with a flourish before giving it to her.

"Yeah, I did. Your other name, too. It was all in the papers your father sent me. I've read your books, but I wouldn't have recognised you from the picture. The blonde hair…" Brennan touched her hair self consciously. It was trouble; needed dying every few weeks to keep it looking real, but it did make her look vastly different.

"Do you… Do you still have the file?" He served his own omelette and slid in next to her at the breakfast nook, shaking his head.

"Burnt it after I read it. As per the instructions." He took a long swallow of beer.

"It just… This cloak and dagger crap kills me. And having to live here, and go to work every day and be called by another name…"

"Who'd you leave?"

He shot a look her way, quickly. "My wife," he said quietly.

"We'd been married four years. Maybe not happily, but close enough. At least we had no children." He shrugged. "She got remarried last week. And I'm happy for her, that she can move on, that she's still living. But I still… I just wonder if we could've survived. If I didn't leave."

"Yeah," Brennan pushed the omelette around on her plate before she gave up on it and picked up her beer. "I wonder that, too."

xXx xXx xXx

**Three Years Later**

It was harder to recall her expressions. The few pictures he had of her didn't give him the shine of her eyes before she cried, or the way her eyebrows drew together when she was thinking about something. And none of the photos gave him her voice. He still had that message, deleted by his provider off his answering machine, but put on a cd by Angela so that he could listen to it over and over. But this was limited, too; it didn't give him the smile in her voice before she laughed, or the passion that appeared when she was trying to convince him of something. Instead it gave him sadness, and finality. She didn't mean to come back from this, whatever it was.

According to the bureau too, she wasn't coming back. Declared officially dead just yesterday, despite Booth's insistence to the contrary, a life insurance payout had further filled her account. Along with the increasing sales of her published books, climbing once again after newspapers reported that she had been declared dead, Booth was sure Temperance Brennan's account was fuller than it had ever been, despite the exclusion of her Jeffersonian wage. Not that she would have spent much of it; she wasn't like other women in her shopping tastes. She'd complained like a child when they'd shopped in Vegas for their undercover clothes until Booth almost had to drag her around the stores by her hand. The only time he'd opened her closet he'd seen it was full of clothes, dusty from being untouched for a year. Booth had a suspicion that Angela had played a hand in the shopping Bones would have had to do to get them.

The squints had scattered after leaving the Jeffersonian. He'd received an invite to Angela and Hodgins' wedding, but had declined. He knew Cam and Zach would go, and he didn't think he could stand seeing the group reunited after so long. It would feel like a puzzle with a piece missing, especially since he would see the changes, the way they had gotten on with their lives when he had remained so stagnant.

He'd tried; he'd gone on his first date eight months after she disappeared. He wasn't sure when his taste had switched from blondes to brunettes, but her hair wasn't auburn enough, her conversation not intelligent enough and her eyes not clear enough. After declining her invitation to come up for coffee, Booth had leant against his car and decided that as hard as he tried to convince himself otherwise, he couldn't settle for anything less than what she had been.

xXx xXx xXx

Angela looked at her swelling stomach and placed a hand gently on it. She was reclining on a sofa that cost more than she'd ever earned in a city that never felt quite familiar.

"Hey, for a gorgeous mother-to-be, you're not exactly glowing." Jack walked in, already taking his tie off and tossing it on the table. In between lecturing at a local university, he managed the Cantilever group. Today had been a day of management.

"It's Brennan, isn't it?" Jack sat down and picked up one of Angela's feet, massaging it lazily. She wondered how she'd gotten to be so lucky; her days as a kept woman were spent working on her art. Her drawings were all landscapes and stills, anything that didn't even remotely resemble a death mask or corpse's face.

"Have you seen the paper?" She handed him the newspaper and he scanned the headlines until she impatiently shook her head.

"Page thirteen." He flipped through before arriving at a familiar face; Dr Temperance Brennan, finally confirmed dead and not just missing.

"Oh." He scanned the article but it gave him less than he already knew. No body. No cause of death. Only more suppositions written by column-hungry journalists with ambition instead of heart.

"This baby, Jack-."

"Will be called Temperance." He smiled at her and leant forward to take her hand. "I wouldn't have it any other way." His cell rang and, sighing, he grabbed it out of his pocket.

"It's an internal number. I'll just be a second." His hand left hers as he answered and walked to the other room. Angela placed both hands back on her stomach. She was lucky, but she wasn't happy. Silently pleased, sometimes, and occasionally satisfied but never quite happy. Maybe now she had some closure on Brennan, she could try and let her go.

Jack came back into the room, a new slump to his shoulders. He looked at his phone rather than meeting Angela's eyes.

"What is it?" She clutched the hands on her stomach, fingers meeting tiny kicking limbs through the membrane and skin that separated her from her child.

"That was… I've had a team looking at all the surveillance video we could get our hands on, from anywhere. Facial recognition, body scanning, everything. We've got sixteen computers just for that…"

"Okay, Jack, but-."

"Looking for Brennan, Ange."

"What? I knew you kept looking but… So many? For so long?" Angela knew she sounded sceptical, but even she had started to lose hope after a year had gone by with nothing.

"She…" He wiped his eyes, still wouldn't meet hers. "She saved me, okay? When we were buried… It was the least I could do." Angela nodded, understood. More had gone on in that buried car than she could imagine; having your own mortality so vigorously introduced when death was what you worked with would be life changing. And you would be forever tied to the person you shared that with. She was sure Brennan had never thought of it that way, but obviously Jack did.

"So, what, was that them on the phone?" Jack nodded.

"Yes. They think they've found something. Someone. It might be…"

"How sure are they?" Angela's voice rose, its characteristic playfulness giving way to the sliver of hope that had never been given up.

"We've had false hits before, but this one… they ran it at 6% tolerance. And it was still positive." Angela eased herself up from the couch and grabbed her coat off a nearby chair.

"I have to see that tape."

xXx xXx xXx

Temperance unzipped the stiletto shoe she'd just put on and pulled it off. Her dedication to running was starting to take its toll on her knees and ankles. Although she tried to keep up the disguise as best she could; all her shoes had heels at least four inches high, today it wasn't going to happen. She slipped out the only pair of flats she owned, other than her joggers, and put them on. Besides, she was only going to be gone for an hour or two. She'd been requested to assist in a translation for a Korean government minister discussing trade relations. Scott worked at the same office; a government employee working for the same men who had necessitated their faked deaths in the first place. She'd heard her father say once that sometimes it was easier to hide in the light.

"Hey Rowe, nearly ready?" He yelled up the stairs. It was a long commute to his office; they lived as far away as they could without his address looking suspicious.

Temperance pulled her hair back as she walked down the stairs. It had grown; was now halfway down her back. The weight meant the curl had gone from it so it fell, sleekly, tied back between her shoulder blades. Her running had slimmed her down as well. She'd dropped almost two full dress sizes; weight she could barely afford to lose. Her cheekbones stopped the light cascading down her cheeks now and her eyes looked larger, more luminous, but still no less grey. She wore more makeup now than she had before, to avoid detection. She'd also been spending the large amount of free time she had 'assimilating'. She was a genius and could learn anything if she really put her mind to it – and in order to fit in with her real life, she had to drop every word with more than four syllables. She'd also had to learn the nuances of speech, when to stop talking, the fine art of discretion. It had been a struggle at first, but Scott had helped her, corrected her when she got something wrong. She'd been especially careful to pick up Canadian slang words, to sound as if she was a native.

With all the changes that had taken place, some days she almost felt like Rowan, and that Temperance had slipped away from her as easily as Joy had. Every night when she curled up to sleep she would focus on the names of bones, holding that memory to remind her that she had been Temperance, that she had knowledge beyond her recently acquired cooking skill, or her improving language skills. And right as she reached the last bone, she'd imagine Booth's face, to remind her that when she was Temperance, she'd had something more than just her bones.

"Ready," she said. He was already holding her bag for her and she smiled as she accepted it. His hands brushed hers. They'd tried to ignore the fact that they were both adults, living in the same house, void of any other affections but slowly it had crept into both their minds.

Both of them had given up someone they loved and both of them craved to have something that simulated that. A year ago, Temperance had invited him into her bedroom. A week after that, he'd finally made his way in. Now they shared the same room. The lives they'd been given were becoming more familiar; government commerce manager and translator. Scott and Rowan. Husband and wife.

So it was only familiarity with the life she was leading that made Temperance forget to hide her face from the camera in the lobby of government house, forget to adjust her walk slightly since her aching, overworked feet had rejected the idea of stilettos that morning.

And it was only luck that the copies of the security tapes from that day were requested by the American office of foreign affairs because of a ministerial transgression. Further luck had them being examined by Morseman Ltd; a security and IT company that sub-leased its equipment and employers to the government. A satellite security and IT company that fell under the umbrella of the Cantilever Group.


	7. Chapter 7

"Agent Booth? Seeley Booth?" The voice was familiar, but it still took him a moment to place it. He hadn't heard it in so long.

"It's just Booth now, without the Agent. Hodgins?"

"Yeah. Wait, you quit?"

"Something like that," Booth said tiredly. He didn't want to get into an involved explanation of his resignation that was written only to avoid an official letter requesting his permanent absence. His drinking hadn't helped, but even when he pulled himself out of that slump there'd been the fact that he couldn't attend a crime scene without wanting her there next to him, teasing him that he preferred fashion over situation-sensible attire. And he was never very good at paperwork.

"What is it? Are you okay? Angela okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine, Angela's great. Better than great actually, she's pregnant!"

"Hey, that's good to hear, congratulations." To his own ears, his words sounded flat; spoken with no real enthusiasm and only because social grace demanded it. Words were spoken in the background he couldn't catch before Jack came back on the line.

"Listen, I've got something… I mean…" There was a clatter, then another voice came on the line.

"Hey, Booth." Her voice was so familiar and it brought a jolt to his stomach. She'd always been there, at the Jeffersonian, perched in the chair across from Bones with a smile on her face that said whatever they were talking about hadn't related to a case.

"Ange." He wanted to say that it was good to hear her voice, that he'd missed her so much. That she was one of the only people he knew who knew Bones as well as he did, knew that she was more than what the newspapers said. More than an author, or an almost orphan, or a genius. More, even, than a squint with a stupidly high IQ and an answer for everything. Instead, he just managed her name.

"Booth, Jack's computers… They were running face and body identification programs on any videos they could get their hands on. And they found something."

"Something what? Her?"

"I've seen the tape, Booth. It looks like her. She's changed, but…" Booth exhaled slowly, his eyes closed. After so long…

"Where are you? I have to see it."

"We can send it-."

"No. I have to see it there. Where do you live?" He'd misplaced her new address. She always sent them on, an update that she and Hodgins were relocating, that things were still moving forward with them. Booth had lost track long ago.

"We live in California. It's sunny here, all the time. Less like… there." Booth had stayed in the same city, in the same apartment. He'd never felt the need to leave, to try and forget. But sometimes he still struggled to remember. Like his days behind the scope of a gun, some memories were crystal clear; the weight of the trigger under his finger as the sun's heat burnt him through his camouflage gear. Or her finger tapping him on the shoulder, insistently trying to get his attention because, when words wouldn't work, she'd get physical. But some memories were fading. He couldn't remember the main reason why she was so adamantly atheist, or why she didn't eat chicken noodles.

"I can be there as soon as a flight is free. I'll call you when I'm at the airport."

"Okay-." He hung up on her, his mind racing with the possibilities. Bones, still alive. He'd never doubted that, but he had doubted his ability to find her. She'd remained as dead as she'd wanted to be for the last three years but now it looked like there might be a light at the end of the dark tunnel she'd plunged him into.

xXx xXx xXx

Scott shut the front door and paused for a moment, listening. He couldn't hear anything; it was likely she was out running. He went with her sometimes, but she always left him far behind while her long legs reached out, covering the ground with a grace that made him feel like an elephant, huffing along behind her.

"Rowe?" No one answered his call and he threw the mail he'd collected from their post office box onto the hall table. Phone bill, electricity bill, bank notice. The usual non-personal correspondence addressed to their other names which were almost more familiar.

Scott loosened his tie and dropped his briefcase on the ground. He had to admit, he liked his job. Strings had been pulled for him to get it; he'd been a different kind of accountant before, dealing with money the government didn't want to know about. Now he controlled a large portion of the government's funding. Before he became Scott he would come home from work to an empty house, although it wasn't because his wife was out jogging. It was more likely she was with one of her friends, men who gave her presents that she took great delight in wearing around him, showing off to him with. He'd loved her, when he proposed. Later, they both knew marriage had been a mistake but it was too easy to go on with things as they were, reluctant to force a change that would have been good for them both. It wasn't until Rowan's father got in contact with him, telling him he had to leave before he and his wife were killed that they got their change. She got his life insurance payout, and he got something better.

He got Rowan.

She'd become more open with him the longer they lived together, but he still sensed she was holding part of herself back. Or trying to lose it, forget it because it reminded her of who she'd been and who she'd been with. She'd never talked about who she left behind, who she was protecting now with this façade and Scott never asked. All he needed to know was that she was here now, with him.

Since they'd started sleeping together he'd felt a new closeness to her, something that he expected husbands and wives who actually chose to take their vows were used to feeling. He'd never had it with his wife, but he was sure now she hadn't loved him, and he doubted if he had loved her. Rowan didn't love him either, and he wasn't sure she ever would. But, god help him, he was in love with her. He was just waiting for the right moment to tell her.

xXx xXx xXx

"Hey, Booth!" The call came from behind him and Booth spun from the baggage carousel, his bag in his hand. Hodgins had shorter hair, and his beard was trimmed within an inch of its life but other than that he looked like he could don a blue lab coat and transport him and Booth both back to years ago when things had been normal. When she was still here.

"Hodgins, hey." Booth accepted the handshake warmly. He hadn't realised how much he'd gotten used to having the squints around; as people, not just as producers of scientific jargon.

"Ange didn't come, she's waiting at home. We digitised the anthropometric comparison tape so it could be burnt onto digital media."

"Huh?" Obviously, though he was no longer at the Jeffersonian, Hodgins was still fluent in squint speak.

"We put it on a DVD. We've got a media room with a large screen. It'll be easier to tell if it's her."

"What does Angela think?"

"That it's her." Booth allowed himself a small smile. Angela's judgement would be enough for him, but he needed to see for himself. Needed to do something to get him out of the self-imposed rut he'd fallen into.

"What? You've still got this car?" Booth silently groaned as he looked at the Mini in front of them. He remembered this car; he'd discharged himself from hospital to save Bones and Hodgins' contribution had been to chauffer them there in a car that could fit in a match box.

"Hey, man, it's a classic. Totally restored." He popped the boot and Booth frowned.

"Is my bag going to fit in there?"

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan pulled up a block from their house, a stitch painting pain all the way down her side. Her breath hitched in her throat, strangled rasps breaking free. She'd pushed herself too hard, again. But it was so easy for the pain to erase the memories that assaulted her in time to her feet beating the road. It always went back to him, but lately it had been fading slightly. She could remember his warmth beside her, his hand on the small of her back and the feeling of his body against hers in the rare moments they hugged. But a brain that held the names of every bone in the human body as well as most of the associated diseases was starting to lose his smell and his voice and the sound of his shoes when they followed her to a crime scene, or into her apartment, or to the lab platform.

She walked the last hundred metres, a hand pushing at the insistent stitch. The lights were already on; Scott was probably inside making them both dinner. If she'd been asked, three years ago, where she would be now, she wouldn't have said married and living in Canada. If she'd been asked if she could imagine herself having to live without Booth, she'd have said no. But now, here she was, married, in Canada and existing without Booth by her side.

"Hey. How was the run?" Scott kissed her cheek as she came into the kitchen to get water.

"It was fine." She perched herself on the bench, watched him chopping vegetables.

"I thought we could go into the city this weekend."

"Hmm." He'd been wanting to do more lately. It was as if, by reaching the magic three-years-undetected mark he thought they were no longer being looked for. Temperance was inclined to agree, but she knew she'd wear her heels, and hide her real eye colour, and cover her face with makeup.

"We can go to the theatre, book into a swanky hotel..."

"I do need some new joggers."

"And I guess we can go shopping." They shared a smile and Temperance slid off the bench, putting her emptied water bottle on the sink.

"I'm going to have a shower before we eat." She left the room and walked upstairs, her calf muscles protesting with every step.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth made them jump the DVD back to the start of the frame again. He was leaning forward on the couch. The figure walked into frame, face tilted down, looking at a piece of paper. She paused, reading. Something makes her look up and a man appeared at the other side of the frame, walking to her. He takes her arm, his touch looking familiar on her skin. She turns to walk with him, her face tilting up towards his and the camera's for one scintillating second.

"Pause!" Booth leant as far forward as he could manage without falling off the couch, trying to make the face out from the grey pixels that blended on the screen. It looked like her, but it had been so long, so much time spent clutching at straws...

"Ange managed clean the tape up a little bit, get the image a little clearer." Hodgins pushed a button on the remote and the screen changed to the same picture, zoomed in and cleared of pixellation significantly. Booth felt the breath leave his lungs. Her hair was lighter, almost white when it was in black and white, but the eyes, and the curve of her mouth was frighteningly familiar. Her walk had tugged at his memory, but it was her hand, clasping the man's arm, that cinched it for him. He remembered her hands in perfect details, the way they could reconstruct a skeleton, or rebuild a skull, or caress a coffee cup.

"Her hair is lighter. And she's a _lot_ thinner, but-."

"It's her." Booth said, interrupting Angela. She fell silent as he nodded.

"Finally... We found her."

xXx xXx xXx

His hand slid across her stomach, under her singlet, and she shivered at the contact. Her hip bones jutted out so sharply now that there was a hollow across her abdomen, the skin stretched more tightly, sensitive to the touch.

"Cold?" He mumbled, half asleep. Brennan shook her head, pushing her hair away when it fell over her forehead. She turned and his hand rested on her waist for a moment before it drew her closer so that their faces were only inches apart. She studied his. His eyes were lighter than Booth's, pupils deep pinpoints that stood out in the light green. His skin was tanned, like Booth's, but it was more freckled, constellations forming on his shoulders. His hair was lighter too, his nails less square, his shoulders not as wide. He was taller, too, so that even when she wore the high heels she always had to wear in public, around security cameras, he was still taller than her. When she wore heels around Booth they would be the same height, their eyes able to meet perfectly, lips at the same level...

"What are you thinking about?" His whisper made her pause.

"You." She didn't add that she was thinking about everything he wasn't. His smile reached her in the darkness and he pulled her closer still.

"Love you." Her breath caught then, pressed against the steady beat of his heart. He'd never said that to her before.

Brennan nestled her head under his chin and took in a gulp of air. She didn't ask to be here, away from a job that she had worked her whole life to get, living apart from the people she loved. She was here because of her parents, because of choices that had been made even before she was a speck growing in amniotic fluid. She was here because she couldn't live with herself if Parker was shot going to school, or if Angela's lifeless body was found in an alley somewhere, or if Booth...

She was here because she had no choice. She'd thought through every other possibility in the time she'd spent living away from America. She could give herself up, actually die by their hand, but she was too selfish for that. Even in a Canadian prison that came with a husband and a furnished house, she still wanted to live. She'd found her ability to compartmentalise invaluable to her; without it, she wouldn't be able to keep up the facade she so carefully maintained. She didn't know how Scott was doing it; even at home, when they could be themselves, the real themselves, if they wanted to, he was always exactly the same as he was at work; cheerful, funny and irrevocably Scott.

It had been three years; everyone would have moved forward with their life. Angela would have put flowers at a grave she wasn't buried under and Booth would be reassigned, working with someone new, calling someone else his partner.

And she... She would look at herself with grey eyes every morning, and she would continue to sign things with the name _Rowan Smythe_ and she would find some way to forget Temperance Brennan as easily as she had forgotten Joy. Forget what she knew, and who she was, and what her favourite flavour of coffee was. But most of all, she'd try to forget who she knew. It was this that caused her the most pain. After three years, she would be nothing but a memory in their midst.

xXx xXx xXx

Hodgins' fingers lay over Angela's, entwined across her stomach. He could see the curve of her face, illuminated by the muted glow coming through the window. She was still the most radiant person he'd seen. It had been dampened by Dr Brennan's disappearance, and not for the first time Hodgins wondered _why_ she'd needed to leave. He never told Angela, but he had entertained thoughts that she was dead. That, despite the timing of a phone call that Angela and Booth had always adamantly maintained couldn't have been taped, the amount of blood meant something. The way she had remained so carefully hidden from Booth and the resources of the FBI. From Hodgins' own security team, who could find a particular speck of sand in an African desert if asked to. She had vanished too perfectly, too easily. Dead bodies disappeared that simply; live bodies did not.

"Do you think she'll come back?" Angela's words made Hodgins' start; her eyes had been closed.

"I don't know." Hodgins didn't ask what it was Angela wanted Brennan to come back to. The team at the Jeffersonian was dissolved and Booth was barely recognisable as the man he'd once been. The spark in him had flared, briefly, when he watched the surveillance tape, but had faded again over dinner. Angela had tried for small talk but they had eventually all fallen into silence as the main meal was served. Too many questions remained unasked, all of them scared at the answers the other's might give. Was it really her? Was she happy where she was? Why did she leave?

Five rooms to the south, Booth turned on the Egyptian cotton sheets. They whispered against his skin and he sighed along with them. Three years of looking and hoping had come to this. A Canadian government building in a mixed language province. An image, caught on tape, that looked startlingly like someone they were all trying so hard not to forget.

Not for the first time, Booth wondered whether they were projecting. They all wanted her back, wanted things back the way they were. Was he going to go hunting for a blonde woman who bore some resemblance to Bones, but who wasn't her? Or was he going to run into her, at a loss for words as he struggled to find something to say that would cover everything he should have said before she left, everything he'd thought about since she'd been gone? That he missed her. That he couldn't function without her there. That he was so in love with her, even in her absence, that some days he couldn't think straight.

But people lied; technology didn't. Hodgins' had assured him the anthro-whatever program was top of the field. That it had recognised her almost without a doubt. He had some of the people working for him running through Canadian databases, trying to find the identity of the man she was with.

Booth shifted again, to the tune of more Egyptian sighs. He was going to book a ticket to Canada tomorrow. Somehow, he was going to find her. And he was going to bring her back.


	8. Chapter 8

Brennan stretched and looked at the early morning sunlight slanting through their window. The air held the promise of a chilly day, the kind where people's mortality hung in front of them in the form of a cloudy breath. She flexed her feet and decided she didn't need to go running this morning. Maybe tonight she'd run through the city.

Scott stirred next to her, pulled his pillow closer in sleep. He always woke after her. She didn't mind; it gave her a chance to run, if she wanted to, or to just lie beside him and think. About Booth, sometimes. But not as often anymore. She did wonder about Angela; what she was doing, if she was still with Hodgins. Brennan hoped she was happy. But Angela's happiness was an omnipresent force; something that had refused to be beaten by the work she did, or the dead faces she drew. It was a constant, like the force of gravity, or the fact that Brennan could never go back to them.

She often wondered if Zach was heading up the anthropology department at the Jeffersonian by now, or if he'd ever finished his second doctorate. All it would have taken to check would be a phone call, or an internet search, but she and Scott had been warned against it. Don't order papers from outside Canada. Don't try to learn anything about the people you left behind. Don't associate yourself with your former life in any way. Scott had looked his wife up from a colleague's computer. Brennan had been tempted to give him her list of names but something held her back. Maybe she was better not knowing, not reopening the wound that had just started to heal.

"Hm... Morning." Scott reached out a hand to clasp hers. She looked at the clock. He'd take another half hour to reach full wakefulness. And after that, he'd stand in the shower for ten minutes. Then he'd make them both coffee before, on weekdays, he'd leave for work. She knew his routine as well as she knew her own. Had it been like this when she'd lived with Peter? She couldn't remember. She thought she usually left before he woke. But now, when her days were filled with gardening, and writing books that would never be published, and tutoring the kids who lived on their street in German, and absorbing pop culture references... Now she took note of more things.

She knew that the neighbours across the street regularly quarrelled in front of their house, and that next door there was an active four year old who imagined his tricycle was a rocket ship that would take him to the moon, if he let it. And the house on the other side held a retired couple who ate dinner on the back deck when there was a full moon so they could hold hands and reminisce. Was this what her life had been like before her parents left? Suburban, and peaceful, and something she'd so adamantly tried to avoid because it had been so hard to leave it the first time. She'd convinced herself that a family was something she wouldn't have; that marrying was archaic, and reproducing wrong in a world filled with such despair and pain. But now that she wasn't seeing death every day, working up to her elbows in it so that it filled her nostrils and her thoughts, now she could imagine what Booth had once referred to as the picket-fence dream. She knew he'd almost had it once, with Rebecca. And here she was, living it. Albeit with a man she didn't choose. But she had to admit his genetic makeup seemed compatible with hers, and he remembered that she didn't like pepper, and sometimes he made her laugh so that she forgot she hadn't known him before they met at an airport in a place she'd been banished from to keep the people she loved alive.

He wasn't perfect; he left his socks lying on the floor, and he always wanted to touch her, as if to convince himself she was really there, and he held her so tightly in bed she sometimes thought he would squeeze the life out of her. But he loved her. And Brennan thought that was what a family might be about; people that loved each other. She didn't love him, couldn't yet, and maybe not ever, but she could live in hiding with him, and wake up next to him every morning and let him tell her he was in love with her.

"How'd you sleep?" His hand slipped out of hers to lift himself up to a sitting position, matching her.

"Fine. Good, actually." Her sleep had been deep and dreamless. She used to dream, at the start, of walking into the Jeffersonian again. She could almost smell the recycled air in her sleep. But now she rarely dreamt. He nodded, stretched, yawned.

"Me too." He slid out of bed, carelessly tugging his boxers down as they rode up. She admired the view from behind. She was lucky, in a way, that the man who had met her in the airport was someone she wasn't repulsed by.

"You still want to go into the city?" She watched him walk to the bathroom.

"Yeah. Thought we'd get a motel room for the night. Eat dinner in a fancy restaurant, then..." He smiled at her just before he walked into the bathroom and she smiled back as she got out of bed to start packing for them both.

She'd slept in the same house for the last three years; it would be nice to have a change for a night. Something to make her feel less like a prisoner.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth was in the kitchen when Angela got up. He was already dressed, his bag sitting on the floor beside him. She wrapped her robe tighter around her as she crossed the room to him. For Californian weather, the morning was unusually chilly.

"Morning. How'd you sleep?" He turned towards her, and not for the first time she wondered how deep the changes in him were. Hodgins had told her Booth wasn't FBI anymore. That Angela hadn't guessed; he'd been good at his job, solid and proud that his work helped people. She wondered what he did now.

"Fine." His exterior betrayed his words; his eyes were shadowed and stubble already darkened his face. He looked back into his coffee and Angela opened the 'fridge.

"Bagel? Orange juice?" She pulled out both items for herself as Booth shook his head.

"Coffee is fine."

"So you're going to go there and then what?" Angela pushed a bagel into the toaster and waited for his answer expectantly. She didn't want to stand around her own kitchen and trade monosyllabic words with Booth. This was a moment she'd been waiting for, hope she'd held for so long that it had started to shred.

"I..." Booth shook his head and spread his arms, "I have no idea." His hands refolded around his coffee cup.

"I have to find her first... We've narrowed it down to a city, but-."

"Hodgins has his security guys looking into it. They're going to find a name." Angela would grasp this little bit of hope as long as she could. She was adamant that they remained optimistic. Although optimism hadn't worked for them yet.

"And then what?" Booth's words were mumbled down into his cup, coinciding with the toaster regurgitating the browned bagels. Angela had to strain to hear him.

"What?" She started buttering a bagel, keeping busy to avoid looking at Booth, willing him not to say it.

"And then what? She obviously left for a reason, Ange. You said that yourself. I've spent three years thinking about what it could be. And I can't think of why she'd just leave us all. So what if she..."

"She's going to come back, Booth, because you're going to bring her back. And if she doesn't want to come back, you're going to somehow get her onto a plane, kicking and screaming if you have to, and you're going to fly her back here." Angela's words were fierce, the bagel forgotten, the butter knife used to punctuate her words.

"You know a kicking Bones would probably be able to take me out." Booth's words bore a hint of the man he used to be, and Angela's expression softened. They shared the same thought for a moment; trying to coerce Brennan into doing something she didn't want to do. It wouldn't be a pretty sight. Then Angela spoke again, serious once more.

"Booth, you promise me... You'll bring her back." Their eyes met but Angela saw Booth couldn't bring himself to make a promise he might not be able to keep.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan took a deep breath of the city air as it flowed in through her window. It smelt different to their suburb; infused with car fumes and food smells instead of flowers and Sunday dinners.

"I booked us into the Ristoni," Scott said as he pulled into the hotel valet area.

"Classy." She said. It was one of the best hotels in the city. There had been more than a few politicians embarrassed by trysts in this hotel.

Her car door was opened and she allowed herself to be helped out; she'd coaxed her feet into her favourite pair of ridiculously high shoes and getting out of the car was still an interesting achievement.

"It's going to sound cliché but only the best for you." With her shoes on she was the same height as him and their eyes met as she walked around the car to him. He leant across and she let herself be kissed.

"Sometimes..." She started the sentence, but she couldn't finish it. You don't love somebody sometimes- it's an all in or all out proposition. But in rare moments, when Scott looked at her as if she satiated every desire he had ever had, she felt a rush of the naturally occurring liquid drugs in her system that preceded intense lust. She wondered if it was love.

"I know." He wove an arm around her waist and led her into the lobby, out of the cold. Maybe he did know; in her three years away from packing pure science into her brain, she had become more adept at understanding the unspoken, the subtle nuances that made up the patchwork of human interaction. She still wasn't quite good enough to recognise if he was just humouring her, or whether he genuinely understood what she meant. She didn't think he understood; he was all in on the love front.

"Booking for two. Scott and Rowan Smythe." As Scott booked them in, Brennan looked around the lobby. The walls were lush velvet and the ceiling was a large, gold open dome with a staircase that wound around it to upper levels.

"Seventh floor. Honeymoon suite." Scott grabbed her hand and led her to the elevator.

"Really?" Brennan raised an eyebrow at him as he leant on the button.

"Really." He leaned closer to her. "And you know how good we are at acting; do you think we can pull off being horny newlyweds for the weekend?"

"I think we can work on that." The elevator doors opened and Brennan pulled him in, hands ensnared in his jacket, keeping him close.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth threw his bag on the bed and looked out the window over the city. Despite his protestations, Hodgins had booked him into a costly hotel room on the seventh floor in the city for as long as he needed. There was a spa in the bathroom, the towels were soft and there was a fruit platter that greeted him on entry. Had he been paying for this he was sure he would have found himself in a room that smelt like an unwashed body had previously resided in there.

There was a park across the street from his window. Snow sparkled on the ground, remnants of the last snowfall of the season. His breath on the glass left a circle of fog, proof he was living and breathing. Sometimes he felt as if he was just a shadow, reacting instead of acting.

The city lay before him, outside the window, expectant. She was out there, somewhere.


	9. Chapter 9

"I was thinking we order something in." Scott kissed her bare shoulder before he reached across her to the menu that was perched on the bedside table.

"There's a fruit platter right there." Brennan pointed at the table and Scott snorted.

"Please, after a workout like that, a man needs some real food. Protein. Steak. Do you want anything?" He passed the menu and, reluctantly, Brennan rolled onto her back to look at it, the sheet sliding across her stomach and breasts.

"I don't think so. I might go running."

"Now?"

"I missed my run this morning." She got up, pulled on her underwear before digging in their bag for her jogging clothes.

"You do know you don't need to run every day. It might be healthier if you didn't." Scott was looking at the menu as he delivered this line. Occasionally he brought up her exercise as if it was a vice, much like the smoking he had given up soon after they had settled into their new lives.

"Why?" Brennan paused, her winter jogging outfit held in her hands; sleek black tights and a long sleeved gray shirt. It wasn't like him to give her advice.

"You're too thin." His eyes lingered over her and she could almost feel them tracing the faint lines of her bones as they jutted from her skin. Her ribcage was visible, her hip bones shadowed her stomach and her clavicles protruded, giving her a wan, breakable appearance she had never had when she was Temperance Brennan, fearless anthropologist. Then, she'd done exercises that had built up her muscles; martial arts, swimming, fencing. Now, as Scott spoke the truth, she realised her running was only the cusp of the control she had tried to wrest on her new life.

She perched on the edge of the bed, noticing how thin her legs were now. They were still shapely but there was an almost juvenile air to them, a prepubescent slenderness.

"I mean, you're beautiful... More than beautiful. But over the last year especially you've been running so much, and eating less than you used to and I'm worried." Scott's final sentence came in a rush, his first words sweetening the blow. He moved across the bed so he could move her hair away from her neck, breath warmth into her backbone as he kissed the back of her neck.

"Let's go out and eat." Brennan said. She had to see if it had gotten as bad as she though; if she was also eating as little as Scott seemed to think she was. How could she have done this to herself? It was as if Temperance Brennen really was disappearing, slowly morphing into Rowan Smythe, wearer of high heels, starving herself thin.

"Okay." There was a pause as Scott thought about it. "There's an Italian restaurant down the street. It got good reviews, a few guys from the office told me their food is amazing."

"Sounds perfect. I can practice my Italian." She'd been learning, taught by an Italian man who lived a street over from them. If she had to be a translator she was going to be a damn good one.

Brennan turned to Scott, kissed him for a short minute. She loved that he didn't dwell. In the time they'd been together, she'd come to understand he was unequivocally neutral, always unwilling to rock the boat. Sometimes she craved verbal banter, the warring of intellectuals – her conversations with the squints, particularly Hodgins and Zach. But she could never let loose the anthropological and forensic knowledge she had in her head without risking her identity being discovered. Looking the way she did, even with blonde hair, was nerve racking enough. She'd done a few book signings in Canada and always avoided the book stores where she may have been. These days she had to satisfy herself with languages, and she was learning, and teaching, as much as she could. She ran tutoring for the few high school kids that lived on their street. Not only did it help her blend in with her neighbours but she picked up countless current idioms from their banter. She also taught French and German several nights a week at a local community centre, free of charge. She'd also taught herself Arabic, with the help of a man who also taught at the community centre. Rowan Smythe, learner of languages, was now fluent in almost eleven languages, and knew how to read and write in Greek, Arabic, Japanese Kanji, Mandarin, Korean and Thai.

"In that case, I'm going to shower... Care to join me?" She laughed as his eyes lit up and he followed her to the bathroom. He was doing very well at playing the part of the horny newlywed.

xXx xXx xXx

"Booth, it's Angela." He was sitting on a park bench, waiting for the snow to fall. The wintry dusk was ebbing into inky darkness and he could feel the atmosphere just waiting to drop glistening snowflakes on the darkening city.

"Hey." He imagined her in the McMansion Hodgins had built her. He wondered if they knew the colour of their living room matched Bones' living room. Maybe Angela had picked it out for Bones and had liked it so much she chose it herself. But he believed more that it had been a subliminal choice, something to bring her back to them a little.

"Hodgins has a few names for you. He's still tracking them down, but there is one that makes more sense than the others. They flew out on the same day..."

"What is she called?"

"If Hodgins is right, her husband's name is Scott. And Bren is called Rowan. Rowan Smythe." Booth turned the name over in his mind, tasted it as he repeated it back to Angela.

"Rowan Smythe. She's married?"

"Yes. That would have been a good cover for her flight, which went to Canada the day she disappeared, but it looks like that wasn't all there was. There are continued tax reports from both Scott and Rowan, filed under the same address. He works at the same place we got the tape from. An accountant for the government."

"So they're still together?" Booth asked.

"It looks like it." They were both silent a moment, refusing to talk further of the elephant that hovered in the phone lines between them. Who was this mystery man? Was this an elopement of sorts, a choice for Brennan that she had made without consulting anyone, without even letting anyone know she was going to vanish and change her name.

"There must be more to it." Booth said finally. There was no way she would have left him, left all of them, without something more than an answering machine message.

"I'll send through everything we've got on them. It's hard to find pictures, though. It seems like they've avoided any social networking sites or work functions that could post images online." Angela said. Booth nodded, realised too late they weren't face to face.

"Thanks, Angela." He said. He could feel her thin smile on the other end of the phone before they both hung up. A few minutes later his phone beeped and the first email arrived. He started to read, still unconvinced if this was Bones. There was so much data Hodgins and his team had found on her that it didn't seem as if she'd only just appeared three years ago, a reborn fully grown woman with a different name. But Booth had briefly dated a woman who had worked in the computer division of the FBI. Even back then, before computers became as integral to society as they are now, he'd been surprised with how much was stored online, and how the right people with the right tools could willingly remake a person if they desired, and if they had the skills to put the right information into the right computers.

Rowan Smythe, nee Cantrell, had grown up in Montreal, Canada with dual citizenship. She was two years younger than Bones, but that wouldn't be a hard thing to fake. She'd started studying languages at university not long after her parents had been killed in a car accident on a Canadian mountaintop. June and Francois Cantrell were only fifty when their sedan had been slammed into by a runaway truck with a drunk driver. He'd escaped with no injuries while they had both been killed.

Scott and Rowan had married when he was twenty-nine and she was twenty-five. She had been working as a translator – German, French, Korean and Swahili primarily - but had given that up after marriage. Scott had received a promotion and transfer straight after they were married and they had moved into their current address, where they still resided. They didn't have any children.

Booth checked the address that Angela had sent in the next email. It was a suburb quite far from the city. Booth could imagine it now; a genteel street with picket fences and established trees. He was aching to go there straight away, drive out there and bang on the door, demand she come back immediately and put together the lives she broke apart when she left. But something stopped him. He wanted to put the pieces together more thoroughly first. He also needed time to steel himself in case it really was Bones, and she shut the door in his face. He couldn't take a second rejection. If that happened his teeth would be firmly wrapped around his gun barrel before his own finger pulled the trigger.

"Angela, it's Booth. Can you ask Hodgson to get me the address of the cemetery where Rowan Smythe's parents are buried? I want to check it out. Thanks." Booth hung up and stood, his old bones creaky in the cold weather. The air had chilled more than he'd thought and he was freezing. His breath was a cloud that hung in front of him, barely moving in the breezeless night.

His phone beeped again and he looked at the message that had come in. It was an address with a link to a google map. Rowan Smythe's parents lay in the Des Moines cemetery, on the outskirts of the city. Tomorrow morning he'd put on his best mourning clothes and pay them a visit. He didn't know why he had to see them, make sure they were there, but he did know he was operating on a feeling he had missed. For the first time in almost three years, Booth was following a hunch.

xXx xXx xXx

The heating in the Italian restaurant was as it should be; warm and infused with rosemary and garlic. Brennan had removed her heavy winter coat and her shoulders were bare. She was picking at gnocci with a gorgonzola dressing while Scott ate his steak across from her. Usually the one to lead her in conversations, he was instead quiet, as if realising an insight about her new self was dawning.

She didn't want to eat. She was hungry but she couldn't bring herself to eat more than a few mouthfuls before pushing the potato dumplings around on her plate, making interesting patterns in the creamy sauce. How had she not realised she was limiting her portions? When had she started cutting back on food? How had she lived with the constant feeling of hunger that was as second nature to her now as tuning out the background noise in the restaurant.

"I bought you something." Scott finally spoke. His eyes were lighter than hers when she was wearing her contacts and they caught the muted wall lighting as he reached into his jacket pocket. He was an attractive man, someone she may have felt sexually attracted to when she was still Temperance Brennan.

"Call it a second honeymoon present." His tone was teasing but his eyes were serious as he pushed the small box across the table towards her. She gave up on her food, acknowledging defeat, and reached for it. It was red velvet and felt soft under her fingers.

"You don't need to get me presents." She said. He shrugged lightly. She opened the box and the sparkle of what was inside reflected back up to her eyes. A large diamond ring sparkled in the light.

"It's gorgeous," she breathed. He slipped around to her side of the table and held her hand. He carefully removed her plain white gold wedding band and slid this ring on.

"Just like you. I thought it was time we had our own ring. Something not supplied by... Something for us." He pulled his chair closer to her so his fingertips could lazily brush her back, sending shivers through her body each time they made contact. She was definitely sexually attracted to him when she was Rowan Smythe.

"I know you don't feel the same but-." She started to interrupt him but he squeezed her hand, keeping her silent.

"I never thought I would feel this way but every day we're still together and I'm not... Who I was before, every day I get to be with you, to be your husband, I feel like I would have taken those wedding vows myself. Because I love you more than I ever loved my wife. Rowan-" Her name dissolved in her own mouth as she pulled him forward for a kiss, wanting his nearness as much as she wanted him to stop talking. How could she have erased his past so efficiently, and why couldn't she do it to herself?

"I love you." He finally got to say it to her, this time in the light rather than post coitus in their darkened bedroom.

"What was your name before?" She asked him, their faces close together. She needed to know a piece of his past, something that wouldn't make her feel like she was all alone, left with one foot in her past and only the tip of a high stiletto in her future.

"David." He said. She nodded briefly and kissed him again, her hands roaming down his shirt. He pulled away reluctantly and looked for the waiter to get the bill.

"That honeymoon suite is waiting for us," she whispered to him as he signed the credit card slip. He helped her into her jacket and pulled his own on.

"Remind me why we didn't order in? The end of the block seems so far to walk..."

"Good things come to those who wait." Brennan replied. All her life she'd missed out on idioms and common sayings, thinking them human constructs uttered simply to skirt around the real matter. Now she loved them for the subtlety they afforded.

"You are not just good." His arm slipped comfortably around her. "You're amazing."


	10. Chapter 10

Booth woke early and did his regular workout. He'd stopped looking after his body for a while after she left but had then fallen into a punishing routine, hoping the pain of two hundred sit ups would ease the burden of losing Bones. It helped, and having some purpose for the morning helped him get through the triceps push ups.

He would take a taxi out to the graveyard after he ate breakfast. He still didn't know why he was going out there, but rather than making him realise it was likely a stupid idea, the morning sun had reinforced his belief that he needed to see the Cantrell's grave site.

Workout finished, Booth ate some fruit from the fruit platter and called down to the front desk. They assured him they'd call him a cab and let him know when it arrived. That done, he sat on the seat near the window, looking out over the city. The sky was gray and hung low, softening shadows and making the buildings look smaller.

_ "Hon, time to go. They called our flight."_

_ "Okay, coming." _

Booth could still hear the two voices in the background of the message she had left him. Bones and the mystery man. He still couldn't work out where coercion had come into it. Since 9/11, airports were impossible to get through with guns. There were other ways to make people do what you wanted but Bones was fairly insusceptible to any psychological tricks and she definitely knew how to defend herself. The simple endearment used at the start of the sentence made him think this guy was familiar with Bones – no one else could call her something like that without really knowing her. That wasn't even the kind of thing you would call someone like her.

Was she seeing anyone before she left? Anyone other than Sully? Booth knew Bones didn't tend to be a one-man woman. She wasn't backward about expressing her sexual needs, or announcing her latest conquest if there was a silence she felt she needed to fill. But he had never heard her mention anyone but Sully. After Bones' disappearance, Sully had liquidated everything he owned and bought a boat. He'd called it Temperance and sailed into the sunset, heading for the Caribbean. He emailed Booth occasionally, but there was nothing to say to each other anymore. Their friendship had soured when Sully had started sleeping with Bones and after she disappeared they had nothing.

The phone rang, the sound jarring in the quiet room. "Sir, there is a taxi downstairs."

"Thank you. I'll be down in a minute." Booth grabbed his wallet, phone and keys and shoved them into his winter coat. Time to visit some graves.

xXx xXx xXx

She was looking at the dwindling curves on her body. Scott had come to the door of the bathroom, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, his chest bare. Brennan flexed a bicep muscle experimentally. Predictably, little moved on her arm; there was precious little muscle remaining along the bone. Serious dieting had digested the muscles she used to have.

"You do know you've been crowned with the award of hottest wife at my work," Scott said. She turned to him, pushing back her damp hair.

"What?"

"You know, the government is primarily run by men who are unfortunately prone to office gossip as much as women. And when it comes to talking _about_ women, I happen to win the 'who bagged the hottest woman' award."

"Is that so?" Brennan asked. She had never thought of herself that way – a hot wife. Any kind of wife. She was surprised at how much she liked the sound of it. It was like being part of a family – a family you got to make by choice. She didn't have a choice in the matter in this instance, but luck of the draw had been in her favour.

"Gives me a lot of street cred at the office." Scott came over to the bed, sat next to her and ran a hand up her satiny thigh. Thanks to long hours spent researching new books she only wrote out of boredom, Brennan now had a firm handle on common terms. Treating it as another language entirely, she'd schooled herself in pop culture and common sayings to the point that she could now understand almost anything anyone said. Another big difference between Temperance and Rowan.

"You do know the next work function we go to is going to creep me out a little bit." Brennan laughed. "Not that I haven't noticed your boss staring at me when I come in to do some translations."

"If only he knew what you were capable of, he'd be cornering you in the stairwell." Scott leant forward, kissed her. He tasted minty fresh, like toothpaste.

"Any water cooler gossip about any of the positions we tried last night and you die." Brennan said. He laughed, the sound dying close to her ear.

"They can only dream, they don't get any details from me." Scott shifted, his weight pressing along one side of her.

"What shall we do today?"

"What do you feel like? Art gallery? Museum?"

"Not a museum." Brennan said quickly. "What about shopping?" She suggested. Scott nodded.

"If that's what you want to do, that's what we'll do." He pushed himself up off the bed and returned to the bathroom to change.

Brennan went to the full wall window and opened the heavy drapes. The sky was ominous, snow coming soon. It was a little early in the season but she was glad it was going to snow. She loved running in the snow; it was a sheer curtain between her and the world, a muffled ice palace where she was neither Temperance, nor Rowan, nor Joy; just herself.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth's boots crunched over the icy ground. He was almost alone in the cemetery except for an ancient groundskeeper who looked like he was not far away from being laid to rest in the same place he tended so carefully.

According to the manifest at the gates of the cemetery, the Smythe's had a crypt on the southern side. Inaccessible by car, he had to cross a large portion of the ground to reach it. The cemetery was beautiful in the wan sunlight; quiet tombstones watched as he walked past them, careful not to walk directly on any graves.

He still wasn't sure what he expected to find but he was about to find out. The crypt stood in front of him, it's side facing him. It wasn't overly large so it took Booth only a few seconds to come to the doorway with the names engraved, enclosing the identities of those within.

_Here lie the bodies of_

_June Cantrell_

_Francois Cantrell_

_Rowan Cantrell_

_Peaceful, now, forever_

Booth felt his heart stop for a minute. It was this that sealed it, that made the hope that had been dully flickering within him reach a strong, steady burning again. Rowan Cantrell could not be buried in this grave and living in a house in the suburbs, married to Scott Smythe.

xXx xXx xXx

Angela hung up her phone and turned to Hodgins. She'd come with him to work, to the underground room at the company that was dedicated to finding Temperance Brennan.

"Booth again?" He predicted. She nodded. Around them keys clicked as several staff members ran searches through national databases, trying to put together just how Brennan had so effectively become Rowan Smythe.

"He went to the grave. He didn't just find her parents – Rowan Cantrell was buried there as well. She'd never been Rowan Smythe." Hodgins eyebrows raised. He hadn't expected that, but now Booth had found it, it made sense. It was much easier to find someone approximately the same age who had died and to assume their identity. Wiping death records was much easier than creating a new person from nothing.

"He's going to go to the address we got from the tax records."

"Sir, we can't get into her Canadian records. Generally accessing the Canadian government computers are easier than hacking a hotmail account but in this case it's just not working." One of Hodgins' staff came to talk to them.

"What do you suggest?" Hodgins asked. The tech guy looked at his friend briefly, then back at Jack.

"There is one guy who could get in. He goes by the name of Neo."

"Oh, come on," said Angela. "Seriously?"

"He's the best. He works out of his apartment in Seattle but he's fairly well renowned in hacker circles around the world. He helped get some of the Afghanistan documents for Wiki-leaks. He also coordinated a... Well, the less you know about that, the better. He's good. He's quiet. He can get in a computer system and out without anyone knowing he's been there."

"Get in contact with him. Tell him we need him to work on a special project."


	11. Chapter 11

Booth stopped in at the hotel before he went to get a rental car. The afternoon was chilling, snow melted from the previous night but the air robbed him of any warmth and made him wish he'd packed some extra clothes.

"Checking out, Sir?" The man at the front desk asked. Booth nodded.

"If you should need to stay again the credit card owner has made it clear that you will be able to." Booth signed the proffered slip of paper and thanked Hodgins. If the address was a fake he could be back late tonight.

"Do you need us to call a cab, Sir?"

"Actually I need a rental car. Where is the best place to get one?"

"How far are you going?"

"Out to Chevron."

"Lovely area. I would suggest Harways' Cars, they're walking distance from here. Walk west from here then turn left at the traffic lights. You'll see them on your right."

"Thanks." Booth shouldered his bags and walked out into the dim afternoon light.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan looked over at Scott. He was asleep in the passenger seat, face nestled against his seatbelt, breath fogging the glass. She always marvelled at how he felt at ease enough to fall asleep anywhere. Or that he could be tired right now. They'd gone shopping which translated to window shopping in one of the large, underground malls. She'd bought her new joggers and, at Scott's insistence, had also purchased several new pairs of heels. She'd also had her hair redone, the colour lightened further, the roots dyed to match. Finally they'd ended up at the movies and had canoodled in the back like a teenage couple until Brennan had figured she was actually interested in the movie and watched it through to the end.

Her cell phone rang suddenly, ring tone startling in the quiet car. Scott had put the ring tone on it and she really didn't like it, thought it was far too conceited. He'd insisted, though, and she'd relented. Give and take. She was understanding how long term relationships could work peacefully. She reached for it, wincing as Scott shifted, and answered as quickly as she could. It was a short conversation and she could see Scott looking at her as she hung up.

"Korean translation. Tuesday morning." She said simply. She'd been getting far more work in the last year and found she actually enjoyed being a drone, rather than the queen bee she'd once been. She liked having more time for outside pursuits, for things other than work.

"Text message, too." She handed it over to Scott to read while she was driving. He sat up straighter in his seat, squinted at her phone.

"Melody from next door. Wants to know if you can watch Joey tomorrow. Her babysitter's sick and she needs to work."

"Sure. Tell her to bring him over whenever she wants." Brennan turned their car off the freeway. They were still several exits from their suburb but never turned off at the same spot or took quite the same route. She often wondered if they'd ever get out of the habit of evasiveness.

"Okay, I'll let her know." Scott's brow furrowed as he painstakingly typed the message in. For someone who was actually quite good with computer, Brennan laughed every time she saw him labouring over a phone. He heard her chuckle and shot a brief glance her way.

"This keypad is not made for manly fingers."

"Mhm." She laughed again and slowed to turn down another avenue. They were almost home, and she was surprised at how much she wanted to be back, amongst familiar surroundings. "I'm sure that's what it is."

xXx xXx xXx

Two hours later and Booth had faithfully followed the GPS in the rented car to the address on Rowan and Scott Smythe's tax records. He pulled up across from the duplex that was listed as their house and got out of the car, surveying the street. It was nice, the kind of street he could imagine kids playing cricket on as dusk approached. The impending twilight held only silence. He couldn't even hear the comforting chorus of multiple televisions in any of the houses.

He saw a curtain twitch on the house across the street and imagined little old ladies phoning each other – neighbourhood watch on red alert. Moving quickly, he crossed to stand in front of the duplexes. The address listed was for the first one. A red car was parked in the driveway and a pair of joggers were sitting on the step outside. Booth gauged the size of them; they looked to be about Bones' foot size.

He knocked on the door and heard footsteps almost immediately from inside. Heavy footsteps – a man.

"Yes?" It was a man that answered the door, but he wasn't Scott Smythe as far as Booth could tell from the pixelated image he had seen. This man was shorter, wider and didn't look like he would fit in at a government building. That was one thing Booth knew well – the G-Man mould.

"I was looking for the Smythe's. Rowan and Scott Smythe. Do you know them?" The man scratched his head and Booth felt disappointed. Of course it wouldn't be this easy.

"I don't know them personally, but they might have lived here. I've gotten their mail a few times."

"Do you have a forwarding address for them at all?" Booth asked. The man scratched his head again as if it would reawaken some brain cells.

"I don't, no. Just keep sending the letters back the way they came, figure they'll give up. You know the Smythe's?"

"I'm Scott's cousin. I haven't been in touch with him for a while but our Uncle just died and I'm trying to get back in touch with him. Chris Smythe." Booth held out his hand and the short, fat man gingerly shook it. His hand felt spongy.

"Chris... Well, since you're family... I've got a few letters for them, may as well give them to you rather than waste my time sending them back." He clumped away, leaving the door ajar. Booth waited, noting the interior of the lounge room was dim with a haze of cigarette smoke. The decor made it look like a dedicated bachelor pad.

"Here. When you catch up with them, tell them to change their address. Or send me where they want it forwarded to."

"Will do. Thanks." Booth took the proffered mail and walked back to his car, resisting the urge to flip through it until he was in his car and away from the street. The sun had almost set and the chill in the air settled on him. As unrelated as it was, he really wanted to know who owned the jogging shoes outside.

xXx xXx xXx

"Hey, Booth... Okay... Okay... Yes, Hodgins has someone looking into it... We know he works there... Okay... Sure, I'll tell him." Angela flipped her phone shut and laid back on the pillow. She cut her hair shorter, a blunt bob. It fell across her face and she pushed it away to see Hodgins' expectant face looking down at her.

"Booth went to the address we had listed and checked it out. It was fake, but some of their mail has been delivered there. He said it was nothing, just junk mail – a few real estate letters and some Readers Digest Sweepstakes letters."

"They're probably using that address whenever they need to put an address on something superficial." Angela nodded as Jack was talking and put a hand on her stomach.

"Hey, soccer star, calm down." She winced, shifted position. Laying down, standing up and all other modes of existence were uncomfortable. She'd definitely revised her dream of having millions of kids. Right now she couldn't wait to have one in the world simply so it would be out of her.

"My guys got in touch with Neo. He's got a job on at the moment but he's going to start tomorrow – thinks it'll take about an hour at the absolute most to get in and download the information we need." Hodgins put a hand over Angela's stomach, felt their baby kicking softly.

"Hey, little man," he said softly, and added "or lady," at Angela's admonishing glance. They had both decided they would know the sex of the baby when it came out and not before. The decision for a girl's name had been easy, but they were still discussing boy names.

"Should we tell the others what we're doing?" Angela asked. Jack rolled onto his back, sighed. They kept in touch sporadically with Cam and Zach. Cam was back in New York, running the main coroner's division, kicking arse. Zach had faltered after Brennan had left. Once they all disbanded, he had returned to his family and, despite his brilliance, had taken a job assisting a coroner.

"I don't know if we need to bring it up until we've got something concrete."

"Like Brennan, coming home with Booth."

"Yeah. Like that."


	12. Chapter 12

Scott had slipped out for work half an hour earlier but Brennan was still in her pyjamas, reclined on the window seat downstairs with a cup of coffee in her hands. Three days without jogging – almost the longest she'd gone without her usual run. She knew she would have to go tomorrow, but today she would get her exercise running around after Joey. He was a precocious four year old who lived with his mother, Melody, next door. Cherubic looking, he could get himself into a lot of trouble if left unattended for the smallest period of time. The first time Melody had asked her to babysit, a year earlier, Brennan had been petrified she'd do something to him – hurt him unintentionally or leave him unattended. Beforehand she'd read up on every childcare book she could find at the library. Scott had seen how worried she was and had taken a sick day to help her, even though she was only looking after him for two hours. After the first half hour, when she'd actually made him smile twice and laugh once, she'd started to enjoy it. When Melody came back, she hadn't wanted to hand him over.

Subsequently, she was now the fallback babysitter if Melody's regular wasn't available and Brennan wasn't working. Melody was also a frequent visitor to their house and Brennan found, with her newly minted social skills, she had become quite adept at girl talk. Angela had encouraged her to try it but she'd seen no point. Now she still wasn't terribly excited about it but it seemed to make Melody happy, and it was a little enjoyable to be able to share sexual technique tips. Despite being a single mother, Melody managed her extracurricular time well. Not to mention Melody had family money and spent the majority of it, after Joey, on an extensive wardrobe. Every government function Scott, and by extension Brennan, was forced to go to prompted a trip over to Melody's to be stuffed into sixteen outfits at which point Mel would declare the first one had been the best.

Checking her watch, Brennan sighed. Half an hour until the little guy came over – enough time to shower and make sure the bottom half of the house was thoroughly kid-proofed.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth nodded at the street vendor as he motioned to the cream then put a healthy load of it into the coffee. He was outside the government building the security footage had come from and was waiting to see if Bones or the mysterious Scott Smythe would emerge. He'd found a parking space that appeared to be beyond the reach of the security cameras, and therefore the vigilant security guards, and where he could see both the front entrance of the building as well as the underground garage. It wasn't the best guarded government building he'd been at, but he assumed that was a Canadian thing.

"Six dollars, thirty cents." The coffee guy pushed across his coffee and cream cheese bagel and Booth nodded. Not bad; cheaper than Washington. He dug in his pockets for spare change, then checked his watch. Almost midday. Time to return to his post in case lunch out of the office was a regular occurrence.

Settling back into the innocuous rental, Booth cracked a window and set his coffee in the cup holder. He hadn't been on a solo stakeout in longer than he could remember. It had always been one partner or another; most of them more tolerable than Bones had been of the boring wait that preceded any kind of action on a stakeout. She could stand, almost unmoving, for hours in some godforsaken place looking at bones in the ground but couldn't sit silently in a car for ten minutes without wanting to talk, or hum, or goad Booth into amusing her.

He missed her.

Sudden movement at the entrance of the building made him slump down further in his seat, observing. Angela had sent him through an image of Scott Rowan she'd cleaned up from the security footage. They still hadn't managed to get into his staff files, where a clearer picture would be, but it was enough for Booth to work from.

Employees were coming out of the building, obviously going for lunch. Scott was tall, much taller than Bones in the security footage. He would have to be over six foot.

A few men matched the general description but Booth didn't see one that matched the grainy image he had seared into his mind enough. They were too broad, too thin, too moustachioed.

Then a guy walked out of the building, affability built into his gait. He was with another two men. His suit was grey and he was tall – tall enough to be a match. He paused, getting out his phone, smiling. The other two men kept walking and he waved them on, his back still infuriatingly turned towards Booth. As if to get privacy for his conversation, he turned, and Booth saw his face. They were separated by twenty metres or more but Booth knew it was him. He talked for a few minutes before catching up to his friends at the food stand. They'd already ordered for him and one thumped him on the shoulder. He said something that made them all laugh before they paid for their sandwiches and coffees and carried them back into the building.

Booth ate the last of his bagel and brushed the crumbs off his hand. He figured he'd have enough time to swap his rental car for another and be back before Scott Smythe headed home for the day. He was going to play this one as professional as possible – he wasn't going to risk Bones disappearing from him again when she was within his reach.

xXx xXx xXx

_You're so beautiful you could be an air hostess in the 60s..._

The first line of her ring tone rang through the kitchen and Brennan grabbed her phone, smearing it with flour. She and Joey were baking, which mostly consisted of covering the kitchen with the ingredients rather than mixing them together.

"Hello?" Even after all this time, she had to catch herself so she wouldn't say Brennan.

"Hey Rowe, what are you and the kid next door up to?"

"Currently ruining your kitchen with the ingredients for choc chip cookies." Joey laughed delightedly in the background and she turned to see he was drawing in the flour he'd tipped across the counter.

"Passing me ownership of the kitchen does not mean I'm cleaning up when I get home." Scott nodded as Jason motioned at a smoked salmon sandwich.

"It was worth a try."

Silence stretched between them comfortably before Scott broke it.

"I'd better get back to work. I can buy something on the way home if you want – sounds like you'll be sick of baking."

"That'd be good. Melody said she has to work late so can you get something Joey can eat too?"

"Sure. See you tonight."

"'Bye." Scott hung up, walked to his colleagues. Dave slapped him on the back.

"Girl's got you whipped, Smythe." Scott smiled, paid for his sandwich.

"Dave, if a _woman_ like that came into your life you'd let her whip you to within an inch of your life." They laughed, all in agreeance, and turned back towards the building.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth found himself pushed further back in pursuit as the man he was following turned down another side street. He felt like he was being deliberately led off track and thought back to anything that might have tipped Scott Smythe off. As far as he knew, the guy should have no reason to think anyone was following him.

Finally, the car in front of him came to a stop in front of a Thai restaurant. Booth drove past and circled the block, pulling in at a neighbouring restaurant. He got out and went inside, pleased there were large glass windows he could see out of. He gave the menu a cursory glance and ordered a steak sandwich, rare, to take away.

Unless Smythe was meeting someone else, he was probably getting take out. Thai places had a fairly quick turnaround so if Booth timed it right, he should have enough time to grab his sandwich and continue the tricky tailing.

Sure enough, ten minutes later Booth had his steak sandwich in hand and was climbing back into his car. Twenty seconds after that Scott came out with a bag in his hand and climbed into his car.

They set off through several suburbs. At a few points Booth thought he would lose him because he had to stay so far back and let him out of sight occasionally. Eventually, though, they were back on a main thoroughfare and Smythe accelerated before cutting across to an exit. Several car lengths back, Booth could make the turn comfortably and was pleased when another car slotted between them. He wished this guy would hurry up and get home; the smell of the steak was mouth watering in the enclosed space.

Six side streets later and Booth dropped further back. He had a feeling this was the right neighbourhood judging by how casual Scott Smythe's driving had become. Idling his car behind another house, Booth saw Scott's car slow before finally turning into a driveway.

The house wasn't overly big, but it was two storey and had a lot of windows. The lawn was neatly mowed, although frost bitten, and the mailbox was straight and painted white. It was built with old-world style and was similar to the other houses on the street – middle class, comfortable, safe. Booth could see lights shining out from inside the house and he reversed slightly, out of sight. Getting out of the car, he jogged quickly down the back alley of the houses across the street before jumping the fence of the one he judged to be across the road. Ducking under the lit windows, Booth moved until the house Scott had turned in at was in sight; 1225 Monterey Lane.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan heard Scott's car outside and smiled at Joey. After exhausting himself 'making' cookies, he'd fallen asleep without protest through most of the afternoon. Brennan had spent the time cleaning the kitchen and salvaging the cookie dough she could. They'd just played their second satisfying game of peek-a-boo but she was glad Scott was here; kids were exhausting. She'd thought the interns were tiring and they were fully functional adults.

"Let's see what Scott brought us, Joey." Brennan hefted Joey up as he put his arms up. He still loved to be carried around; he was a snugly kid.

"Stotty, Stotty, Stotty!" The war cry was next to her ear and Brennan leant away, grimacing.

"Easy on the vocal chords, buddy." She pulled his beanie on around his resistant fingers and opened the front door. The day was growing dark, light fading quickly to leave grey, ashy darkness. It would probably snow again tonight.

"Gorgeous." Scott greeted her as he gathered the food and his briefcase. Brennan smiled briefly, unable to move her hands from the squirming four year old on her hip as he reached out for Scott.

"Hey, Joey." Scott put his things down on the hood of the car and took hold of Joey. Hefting him over his head he roared and Joey giggled delightedly, his little arms outstretched.

"I think he was waiting for you all day so you could do that." Brennan gathered up the food and the briefcase and paused for a moment so Scott could kiss her cheek, then her mouth.

"And I was waiting all day to do that." He smiled, motioned Joey towards the food bag instead of pointing.

"I got Kappow Moo, Khaow Pad Guy, Som Tam and some clear soup and chicken for the main man here." Scott growled and pretended to bite Joey's shoulder; the kid was in hysterics. From her anthropology, Brennan knew children should have both male and female figures in their lives; she was glad Scott could be an influence on Joey.

"Let's eat, then. He shouldn't be out in the cold too long." Brennan turned towards the house and was overtaken by Scott and Joey.

"Yes, Mom." Scott swooped Joey through the doorway. Brennan could hear them laughing inside and she was about to start up the stairs to the porch when she paused. Something didn't feel right...

Turning to scan the other houses in the street, she couldn't see anything unusual. She gave it another minute before the voices from inside reached her.

"Woman, bring in that food! We're hungry."

Joey joined in on the end of it, so all he got out was, "ryyyyyyy." Brennan smiled and jogged up the stairs, closing the door behind her.


	13. Chapter 13

Booth slumped against the side of the house, unable to catch his breath in the arctic air. It had been her; completely, undeniably her. She was so thin and breakable looking it made him physically sick. Her hair had been so long – three years of growth he hadn't seen. As in the security video, it was blonde. It suited her.

Her skin was still pale, but had a wan appearance to it, as if she could just fade away entirely. Her eyes, searching for him through the darkness, looked darker but were just as luminous. And on her hip, a child...

Booth felt the crystallised ice on the side of the house dampening his clothes, soaking through to chill his skin. He stood, walked slowly back towards the fence. This time, jumping over was harder. He was no longer enthused. He'd found her but it didn't answer anything, just brought up more questions.

Despite her fragile appearance, she'd looked happy enough. And, from her actions, she didn't look coerced into staying where she was. It was the opposite; it looked like she was pleased to be welcoming her husband home after he had spent a long day at work.

Booth tiredly got into his car, the adrenaline rush that had been fuelling him since he'd received Hodgins' call fading. The steak sandwich didn't smell good anymore. Instead, he felt sickened by the aroma of onions and freshly cooked meat.

His phone rang as he was driving back to the main road to find somewhere to stay for the night. Angela's name flashed on the screen and he ignored the call. He needed more time to process what he'd seen. Because, at the moment, he was still speechless.

xXx xXx xXx

Melody got home later than expected. When she knocked on the door, Brennan stretched, shifted Joey's head from her lap.

"I'll get it." They had a corner lounge and Scott was laying along the other end of it, almost asleep. Brennan waved him back down, stood up quietly.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, there was so much work we had to do on a deposition..." Brennan smiled, shook her head.

"You know it's no problem. We love having him."

Scott appeared, having scooped up Joey from the couch. A typical four year old, he was dead to the world.

"Is your place unlocked? I can put him in his bed if you want," Scott offered. Melody nodded.

"That would be great." She and Brennan both watched Scott walk softly across the lawn that separated their houses before disappearing into her lit house.

"You are so lucky." Melody said. Brennan nodded, turned back to her friend.

"You look tired. How was work?" Melody pushed her dark hair back, shrugged.

"I love it, but it's killing me. I thought I could do three days a week but it turns out it's the hours of five days shoved into three. Thanks again for looking after Joey."

"Really, it's no problem. We baked, we read a few books, we pretended we'd both disappeared behind our cupped hands."

"Wait, why are we talking about my four year old when we should be talking about your weekend away? Was it the most romantic weekend of your life? Other than your honeymoon, I mean." Melody's voice was girlish, lighter than when she talked about work. Brennan was reminded of Angela but pushed the memory aside as she thought about romantic weekends that spanned further back than her three 'married' years.

"I think it was."

"Oh my god, Rowan, what is this?" Melody grabbed Brennan's hand out of her jeans pocket and admired her new ring. Brennan shrugged.

"We never really got engaged-"

"Yes, because you guys were crazy and went straight to married!" The official story was that they'd met and married on the same weekend. It saved them having to come up with any kind of correlated narrative about their engagement period. And it was the closest to the truth they could get.

"So Scott decided to officially propose. Or at least give me the ring for it."

"That's gorgeous." Melody held it this way and that in the light, admiring the sparkles.

"Like it?" Scott asked from behind her as he came back across the lawn.

"Where can I find your twin, Scott. I mean, he could be a little broader in the shoulders, and maybe have blue eyes... Oh, and-."

"Why do I feel like that's a back handed compliment?" Scott smiled, yawned and kissed Brennan on the cheek.

"I'm out. Night, ladies." He walked inside the house, most likely heading upstairs to shower.

"Seriously, I've got to live vicariously through you by hearing about your weekend. When are you free? I'm not working tomorrow so I shall be spending some quality time with my gorgeous son before he spends the rest of his week with his Dad."

"I'm free tomorrow afternoon," Brennan offered.

"Excellent. I'll bring the wine, you bring the cinnamon. Now I'd better get home and tuck my boy in." As with any Melody-time, there would be alcohol involved.

"Night." Brennan said. She watched as Melody made her way carefully across the icy lawn before giving her a final wave.

Back inside, she could hear running water upstairs. Checking the downstairs was locked and the alarm on, Brennan turned off the lights and went upstairs to bed.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth checked the time. California was two hours behind so he assumed Angela would still be awake.

"Booth. What's been happening?"

"I found her." Her silence prompted him to continue. "She's living with him in a two storey house in the suburbs." More silence kept him going. "She's so... so thin, and she's blonde now, and her eyes look darker. And I think... She had a child with her."

"What!" He could hear Angela's confusion. "No way, Booth."

"That's what it looked like. He got home from work, she came out of their house carrying a kid..." Booth paused, thinking back. He knew child sizes, had mapped every one of Parker's years in his head.

"Although... The boy, he looked older than he should have. He looked around four-"

"Then he can't be hers." Angela said, convinced by the numbers.

"I'm going back tomorrow, to see if I can talk to her."

"Good luck, Booth." Angela hung up, turned to Hodgins who had come to the doorway as soon as he'd heard who was on the phone. They'd gotten Rowan Smythe's address a few hours before and Angela had been trying to reach Booth to let him know that Neo had worked his magic on the Canadian databases and had sent it on.

"He doesn't need the address, he found her. Thought she had a son but it doesn't work with the age – when she disappeared."

"So she's alive. Definitely?" Hodgins asked. Angela nodded, set her phone carefully on the table.

"Definitely. Booth's going to talk to her tomorrow." Hodgins sank into a chair beside her. Even after tracking down what was obviously a decent lead, he had never expected to find her.

"How do you feel?" He asked her, instinctively pulling one of her feet up to massage it. She shrugged, rested her hands over her stomach.

"It sounds like everything has moved on with her, like she really has become a different person."

"She wouldn't have left if she didn't need to, Ange, for whatever reason."

"I know." Angela leant her head back and closed her eyes. "I know."

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan showered quickly and slid in beside Scott. She was weary after a long day of entertaining Joey and she had to get up early; she was definitely running tomorrow morning before she went to work.

"Have a good day?" Scott asked, his hands moving over to her, encircling her. He looked quite thin but there was hidden power in him, raw muscle strength lurking beneath his easy-going exterior.

"I did." She snuggled against his chest, enjoying the extra body warmth. It was a cold night and they always left their curtains open so the closed windows at the end of the bed radiated cold from their glass. It wasn't a very efficient house, built before double glaze had been as affordable as it was now.

"I've been thinking..." He stretched out, taking one arm away from her to tuck over his head.

"Hmm," her tone was cautious.

"Kids." She left a pause in case he had anything extra to add. He didn't.

"You can't be serious." She sat up slowly, not believing what she was hearing.

"We're married-"

"We're married because we're pretending to be people we aren't. Not because I met you in Vegas one weekend and fell in love and decided to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Well, I fell in love with you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you-."

"The rest of your life?" Brenan asked. She got out of bed, pulled the blanket from it. She was going to sleep in the spare room, but she wasn't going to leave him comfortable.

"And how long might that be? How long until we would have to leave our children, leave them to fend for themselves in the foster system?"

"Rowan... Rowan, just stop for a minute." Scott moved smoothly out of bed, caught her arm just before she could leave the room.

"If we had children, and I'm saying if, not when, we would never leave them. We'd be a family. We would never, ever leave them behind, no matter what."

"The same way you were a family with your wife? The same way you left her behind?" Brennan pulled her arm from his grasp and left the room. She hoped he would leave her be until morning, stop spouting hypocritical words in the darkness.

She knew he thought he meant it, that if they had children they would never leave them behind. But she also knew what it felt like to be left and how things could happen that left you with no choice. At least she liked to think her parents had no choice in leaving her and Russ behind, in the same way she'd made her 'choice' to leave everyone in Washington. There was no way she could bring children into the world, knowing she may have to one day leave them. She wasn't sure she could do it, could be as strong as her mother had been and simply cut contact. And there was no way she would endanger her children's lives.

That left one option; she would never have children. While she was in this life, she could never be a mother.


	14. Chapter 14

The beginning of the sun's light through the spare room window woke her, and Brennan looked at her watch. It was still early, early enough for her to run. She'd slept on top of the pre-made bed, using the blanket she'd taken from Scott. Now she pushed it aside, turned away from the window so she could get out of bed.

There was a couch in the spare room, another prop since they didn't have visitors. Scott had used it sometimes if he read the paper before going to bed, before he moved in to share the main bedroom with her. Now, he was sleeping on it under a blanket he'd pulled from the linen closet. Brennan reached a hand out tentatively, smoothed the blanket at his shoulder. She had no idea why he was in here.

"Morning," his eyes opened slowly, blinked, focussed. He looked around them then back to the puzzled look on her face.

"Well... I don't think you should ever go to bed angry at someone. But by the time I was ready to come talk to you, you were asleep. So..." He motioned to the couch and winced as he sat up, rubbing his neck.

"You slept in here... To continue the argument when I woke up?" Brennan stood up, stretched, waited for his answer.

"To apologise. So you could come back to bed. But you're a pretty heavy sleeper. Snore, too-"

"I do not snore!" Brennan picked the blanket she'd used up off the bed and threw it at Scott.

"Okay, you don't snore. But I am sorry about what I said last night. To even bring it up." She looked at him for a long moment, knew he was aching to touch her, the way he did during nearly every conversation they had. A hand gently on her hip, along her arm, fingers entwined.

"While I recognise children appear to be the logical next step after marriage and securing a house, we're not a conventional couple, Scott. And there are more things we have to consider than regular couples."

"I know. I just... Sometimes it's easy to forget we're not just a regular married couple." He stood, gingerly straightening his back out, bundling the two blankets under his arms.

"I'm going running." Brennan turned for the door, paused at the threshold. "I'll give you a massage tonight. I'm sure the couch was not terribly comfortable." As she looked back to deliver the words, Scott was busy bending sideways, grimacing. He brightened at her words, straightened back up.

"It was worth it." She allowed him a small smile before going to change into her running clothes. She needed to push herself extra hard this morning, to make up for the last three days of rest. She wasn't going to turn back until she felt pain.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth found himself in familiar surroundings; the scent of burning candles filled the air, thick and heady, and the wooden seat behind his kneeling figure was hard, filled with a sense of permanence. Long after he was buried, this seat would still be here, accepting worshippers and sinners.

The service had finished but the church was open now, allowing solitary people to pray as they wished.

Despite the church feeling familiar to him, Booth hadn't seen the inside of a church in two and a half years. He hadn't abandoned God but he'd stopped going to his House, stopped praying for something he was sure wouldn't happen. No matter how many miracles God had stored up, it wasn't likely he would use one for Temperance Brennan, prominent cheerleader of the atheist collective.

But now it appeared a miracle had happened. They'd finally found her after so long. She appeared changed on the outside, but Booth was wondering how much she had changed on the inside. She couldn't have forgotten him, couldn't have. But he was terrified of knocking on the door and being greeted by a blank expression. Of feeling like he had just interrupted someone else's marital bliss. Someone else who had pledged to never be married, who had written it off as archaic and a ritual extinct to a forward-thinking genius as herself.

He was praying for the strength to knock on that door, to deal with whatever lay behind it, whether that was the Temperance Brennan he knew and loved or someone else who had taken her place in the three long years since she had vanished from his life. He was praying for the wisdom to make the right decision after he had evaluated who she was now and why she was there.

Unlike Angela had insinuated, he would never drag her back kicking and screaming. If there was one thing he knew about Bones, it was that she would never be made to do something against her will. Which was why her reappearance as married Canadian translator was mind boggling to him. She had to have a good reason to disappear, and he wanted to hear it. He wanted to know how she had walked away and left the squints, and him, floundering in her wake, trying to keep their heads above water. It had worked for some of them, but Booth had sank to the bottom and had stayed there, finding he liked the depths better than the charade of pretending to breathe air, pretending to exist without her as if a part of him hadn't been demolished the day she went away.

Most of all, he was praying for the strength to walk away from her if she could tell him she was happy. If she was better off where she was then he would leave her. But it would be the hardest thing he would ever have to do.

Looking up at Christ on the crucifix, Booth crossed himself and sat back. He would watch the house for the rest of the day, waiting for her to appear. He would prefer to talk to her alone so he could gauge from her who the man was and what he meant in her life.

Then, he would decide what to do next.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan smoothed her straight skirt over her thighs as she walked along to Scott's office. She remembered what he said on the weekend and was imagining how many eyes were watching her as she passed through.

"Hey." He was just hanging up his phone as she walked in the door and she stood in front of his desk.

"I'm finished for the day so I'm going to head home."

"You want to take the car? I'll get a lift back with Roger."

"You sure?" He nodded, tossed over the keys. They had ridden in together, but there was a bus back Brennan could have taken.

"Thanks. I'm seeing Melody this afternoon." Brennan perched on the edge of his desk, her skirt riding up to show a sliver of her thigh. That was where Scott placed his palm, warm on her skin.

"Ah. So I should expect to come home and find you giggling like school girls with an empty pitcher of margaritas beside you?"

"I think it's going to be red wine. Mulled." Scott nodded sagely, moved his hand higher.

"Then I will hold back your hair as you throw up at 3am." Brennan smiled.

"I don't throw up." Scott stood, placed his hands either side of her on his desk.

"You say that now... Want me to walk you out?" A light kiss on her cheek, his breath through her hair onto her neck, making her shiver.

"Past the water cooler gauntlet? Definitely." Scott laughed, grabbed her hand and pulled her off his desk. Hands still entwined they walked to the end of the hallway where the elevators were located.

"You know, we could really give them something to talk about..." Scott pulled her closer, moved his lips towards hers.

"Which would give you even more 'street cred', I assume... And I get what out of this exchange?" Brennan eluded him, hands on his chest, holding him back.

"Well... Me?" He looked so endearing she laughed and used her hands on the lapels of his jacket to pull him close. Four seconds later and the elevator dinged open. Two seconds after that Brennan put her arm behind her to stop the door closing. Another second and they were apart, her hand pushing him away.

"I'll see you tonight," she said, stepping back into the elevator.

"Yes, you will." Scott waved to her and turned back to the corridor. She could almost hear the wolf whistles and she shook her head. Testosterone and alpha-male dominance were so predictable.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth drove slowly down her street, looking for signs of life. The car was gone and he saw nothing to indicate she was home. He couldn't be sure she wasn't there, either. He wasn't going to knock on the door until he was certain she would answer.

Another pass along the street found him his perfect vantage point. Across the street, three houses up was a house for sale. It joined onto the same back alley Booth had used previously, so he should be able to jump the fence then let himself in. The second storey room at the top should provide him a view across the lawn of 1225.

Decided, Booth parked his car several blocks away, outside an apartment complex where it wouldn't be suspicious. He walked back slowly, wanting to look like he was just going for a morning constitutional around his neighbourhood. When he got to the back alley, he jumped the fence quickly then paused. If anyone did happen to look out of the window for that second, they might keep looking. If nothing further happened they would probably convince themselves they hadn't seen anything in the first place. Booth had found people were very good at convincing themselves of whatever facts would be easiest for them to deal with.

Getting into the house was just as easy, and Booth shut the kitchen door carefully behind himself. The house was quiet, devoid of furniture or heat. Though it was a sunny day the air temperature inside was still cool, matching the outside temperature.

Jogging quietly up the stairs, Booth moved to the front room; the main bedroom. Twitching the curtain aside, he saw that he could see across the lawn as well as partly into a room that looked to be off the kitchen. There was a window seat that he slumped into, preparing himself for the wait.

xXx xXx xXx

"I never thought love was worth changing your life for." Brennan said, thoughtfully twirling the wine glass in her hand. She'd come home two hours ago and had seen Melody waving off Joey. She'd left the door open for Melody to come in and had quickly changed from her suit into jeans and a shirt. Then the drinking had started. That was several hours ago and now both of them were comfortably mispronouncing words and sinking lower in their seats.

"But Scott changed your mind, I 'ssume." Melody poured them both some more wine and Brennan took a sip. That wasn't the love she'd changed her life for, but that was a secret that could never be revealed.

"Yes, he did."

"Seriously, I'm more than a little jealous. He's gorgeous, he obviously worships you, and he bought you that rock!" Melody pulled Brennan's hand close, looked again at the ring. It fired sparkles in the light.

"He's a good guy," Brennan said truthfully. He was a good man; without someone like him she doubted she could have settled into this life so easily.

"To Scott!" Melody proposed a toast and Brennan clumsily clinked her glass, drained what she had remaining. Melody started to pour another glass but Brennan grabbed the jug, held her off.

"Think I've reached my limit. I told Scott I wouldn't be throwing up later and I really like to be right." Melody laughed, checked her watch, cut her laugh short.

"Oh, shit. I told Dave I'd look through some case notes since I didn't have Joey in the afternoon." Brennan watched as she got up, unsteadily made her way towards the door, holding onto everything she could grab onto in order to stay upright.

"Thanks, Row... It's nice to have someone to just... talk to." Melody had told her about Travis, Joey's father. He was pushing for more custody time, which Melody was resisting. She was considering leaving her job, getting by on money from investments, so she could spend all her time with Joey – something that would be especially important if Travis ended up getting him for more time each month. Melody just didn't know if she could stand being away from the outside world that much; too much time spent with a four year old and every second word out of her mouth might rhyme.

Brennan had envied her the decision – keep working, doing a job she loved, or stay home with her son.

"Yeah. It is. 'Bye." It was growing dark outside and Brennan got up to turn on the outside light for Scott. Before she knew it, she was clinging onto the edge of the counter. She'd heard of being 'legless' when drunk, but never thought she would experience it. Several bottles of red wine between two friends could do that, apparently.

Making it to a chair, Brennan sank into it. Scott could make his way in the dark.

Minutes later, Brennan heard keys in the lock then the door opened and closed a few seconds after she sat down.

"I helped Melody across her lawn. Just how much did you drink?" She had her eyes closed but felt his hands brush over her hair gently, move it back from her face.

"I don't know," Brennan said miserably. Usually she could take alcohol – a lot of alcohol – but red wine affected her differently than spirits.

"There are a few bottles here... My offer to hold your hair back while you're praying to the porcelain god still stands." Brennan took a moment to decipher what he meant then smiled weakly.

Scott started cleaning the kitchen. She heard the clink of bottles as he put them in recycling and the gush of water as he rinsed the glasses and the crockpot Melody had used to heat the wine and infuse it with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

"Guess I'm not getting that back massage tonight." Brennan finally opened her eyes. He was wiping the bench. He'd shed his jacket and it was draped over a stool at the breakfast nook. His sleeves were rolled up and he laughed at her as she looked over.

"Melody is a bad influence on you," he mock scolded.

"Hmm." Brennan attempted to sit up straighter, struggled. "Give me a few hours. You'll get the massage of your life."

Scott threw the dishrag in the sink and wiped his hands before coming around to her at the table. "The massage of my life?" He repeated, resting a hand on her knee. She leant forward and he rubbed her back. "My poor, drunk wife." He placed a kiss on the back of her head then moved his hand to her shirt buttons.

She couldn't believe how drunk she felt. The rational thing to do would be to try and throw it all back up – something her body was encouraging her to do.

There was a sudden knock on the door and she felt Scott tense. It could be any of their neighbours but every unexpected visit was one that could mean the past catching up.

"Don't move," Scott said.

"Ha ha," her tone was sarcastic and he laughed as he left the room.

She heard him walk to the door, open it. There was a soft male voice she strained to hear, to recognise. She half rose from her chair and stumbled upright as she walked towards the entrance way.

"Rowe!" Scott's voice called her further down the hallway, the tone deceptively light. She rounded the corner and was stopped by her own shock, incapable of moving or speaking. The gun they always kept easily accessible near the front door was in Scott's hand, trained on the man who stood in front of him. Velvet chocolate eyes met hers, searched them. His hair was slightly longer and his face was thinner, older – he had aged more than the three years they'd been apart could account for. His shoulders were as broad as she remembered but instead of being held up proudly, the way they used to be, they were slumped as if he was expecting a beating. She could taste his name on her lips and it felt familiar despite how much separated them. He was everything she had wanted for so long, but nothing she was expecting.

Her stomach recovered first and she brought a hand up to her face. Reanimation of her legs followed and she ran to the bathroom to throw up.


	15. Chapter 15

It was the closest he'd been to her since he'd left her office late one night, years ago. She was as thin as she'd appeared in the surveillance video but her face was flushed, huge eyes wide with shock.

Even with the extra makeup that hid her face, the darkness of her eyes and the long blonde hair she still held the indefinable, unmistakeable essence of her that had drawn him to her over half a decade ago.

Then, before he could drink in any more of her just being there in front of him, in the same room as him, she clutched her mouth and ran. Another second and he felt quick agony at the back of his head then nothing.

xXx xXx xXx

Scott loved being around Rowan when she was tipsy but he liked drunk even more. Knowing he would probably have to carry her to the shower and then to bed when he got home, he'd persuaded Roger in internal affairs to leave early and drop him 'home' on the way – which was three blocks away from his actual address. Scott liked this life and he was forever vigilant about staying under the radar; he'd had practice at keeping his identity secret before and he'd nearly been found out by letting a 'friend' know his address.

Walking home, he'd come across Melody on the lawn and escorted her safely to her front door before entering his own house to find Rowan practically passed out at the kitchen table and an alarming number of bottles on the bench. He waited a respectable amount of time before joining her at the table, pulling her to him. She was always so soft and boneless when she was drunk, the carefully constructed brittle exterior demolished by the alcohol. Though far more relaxed around him now she still had her secrets and held herself back as carefully as Scott kept the details of their lives secret from his colleagues. Times like these, when she was so free with him, were precious.

Then, a knock at the door. He assumed it was just Melody, back for some reason, or possibly Mr Ryans from up the street, confirming they were attending Saturday's barbecue on Saturday.

Instead it was a tall, broad shouldered guy who spoke with a Pennsylvanian accent. He asked for Rowan Smythe but paused before he said it as if it was a foreign name to her. Scott smiled and invited him in. Shutting the door he grabbed the handgun that was always kept, fully loaded, in a coat which hung from the back of the door. He called to Rowan, heard her stumbling along towards them.

"Who are you?" Scott asked quietly, pressing the gun to his back as he quickly frisked him, checking for concealed weapons.

"I don't mean you any harm. I just want... Bones." The guy tensed perceptively as Rowan, summoned by Scott's call, stepped into view. Scott moved back, taking his gun out of the guy's range should he suddenly try to grab it. His move also lessened the chance Rowan would be hit if he had to shoot.

Rowan obviously recognised him, this stranger who had stepped so casually into their life. He couldn't tell what she was thinking but her reaction wasn't one of fear. Instead, it looked like shock and something else... Before he could ask her about him she grabbed her mouth and whirled away towards the downstairs bathroom. The brown eyed stranger moved as if he was going to follow her and Scott didn't hesitate – he needed to see how Rowan was and he couldn't do it without dragging this guy along or incapacitating him. He chose the latter option by striking the back of the guy's head with the gun. He dropped like a stone and Scott hurried after Rowan.

xXx xXx xXx

Cool hands pulled hair back from her face and she moaned weakly, hating how she felt right now and hating even more the fact that it was self inflicted. She would feel better once she'd emptied her stomach and, though irrational, she was sure the jolt of adrenaline that had shot through her system at first sight of him had cleared her head somewhat.

Finally, she sat back, took the dampened edge of towel Scott offered her and raised her eyes to meet his. She hadn't heard a gunshot, but...

"Just knocked him out until I could talk to you. He's going to wake up with a headache, but that's it." A pause, then, "who is he?"

Brennan wasn't sure how to explain – or how to begin to reconcile how she had imagined that moment with how it had really happened. For so long, especially at the beginning of her seclusion, she'd yearned for Booth to find her the same way he'd found her countless times before. But this time all she had to go on was faith, something she didn't believe in; rationally she knew her father would have made her disappearance as absolute as his had been twenty years previous. He would have known how hard Booth had looked. He'd obviously underestimated him, and so had she. She'd given up imagining Booth would knock on the door to save her about the same time she stopped herself wanting him to.

And now, he was here.

"Rowe?" Scott reached for the hand she stretched out, helped her to her feet. She was pleased, at least, to find she felt less shaky.

"He's... He was my partner. Back... then." Rummaging under the sink, Brennan came up with a toothbrush and toothpaste and hastily applied one to the other before furiously brushing her teeth, removing the sour taste of mulled wine in reverse.

"Fuck," Scott said softly, then, "fuck," louder. It was an exclamation of the possibility of an end – where one determined FBI guy could find them, so could anyone else.

Brennan spat, rinsed her mouth out. "We don't know how he did it – if whatever information he used could be available to anyone else. And we don't know if anyone is still looking, or-"

"I know, but can we take that chance?" Scott looked at her, fear and resignation clear on his features. She'd grudgingly gotten used to it, too, had even started to enjoy the simplicity of the life they led together.

"Let's talk to him. Then we'll make a decision." She hugged Scott back as he clung to her, wondering if she was right and it would be a decision they made together.

xXx xXx xXx

Booth ran back through the afternoon's events in his head. While he was watching her house a paperboy had tried to jump his bike up the curb and failed miserably half an hour after Booth settled in. When no one came running out of the house, he felt it safe to assume that no one was home. A woman and the boy he'd seen with Bones came out of the house next door and Booth felt himself breathe more easily. The resemblance between them was apparent even from across the street. Bones must have been babysitting when he saw her with the kid. The paperboy finally rode away slowly, his pride hurting as much as his bleeding nose, and the street was empty once more.

At two-thirty, the dark haired woman from next door brought her son back outside with a bulging bag in hand, meeting the grey sedan that pulled up. A brief goodbye scene, then the boy was driven away. Visiting time with his dad, Booth felt sure, then felt a twinge. He'd tried to keep everything as normal as possible for Parker after Bones disappeared but Parker was too smart; he'd known something was up. When Booth couldn't avoid it any longer he'd explained what had happened. Parker had been more upset than he'd imagined and it made him realise just how integral Bones had become to both their lives. She'd read Parker to sleep more than a few times and was surprisingly good at changing her voice for each different character.

Eventually, being resilient, Parker had accepted it and had stopped asking after 'Dr Bones'. Booth had made sure he saved his cheerfulness for anytime he spent with Parker and those moments in his life, when he was with his son, began to feel almost normal to him.

Before the lady next door got back inside, the red car he'd seen Scott Smythe driving the previous day pulled into the driveway. Bones was driving. She got out of the car and Booth simply watched, still marvelling at the changes. Her shoes looked like something Cam would have coveted but were an inch or two higher, making her height amazonian. They affected her walk, made her slender hips sashay under the tight skirt she wore. Part of a suit, it was also something he couldn't imagine Bones wearing. He had loved the way she dressed before, but her clothes had always been sensible, cut so she could crawl around inspecting dead bodies. This suit was fitted, glove-like on her body. If she'd worn something like this on the back cover of her books Booth imagined sales would have been even higher. Probably the readers of her books would also have been even more sexually deviant.

She waved to the other woman and called something out. Booth couldn't hear what it was but ten minutes after she vanished inside the woman next door crossed the lawn with what looked like a crockpot in her hands. Several bottles of wine were tucked under her arms. Half standing, readying himself to go see her while she was alone, Booth sat back down, opportunity lost.

Several hours after that, to the backdrop of deepening twilight, Scott Smythe walked up the street. He approached his house at the same time it ejected an obviously drunk woman. He helped her home before going inside.

Booth sat for another few minutes, debating. He was sure he could take out Scott Smythe if he needed to but hoped it wouldn't come to that. While he couldn't be sure if Bones was an ally against him, he was confident to assume she wasn't an enemy. She'd vanished from his life but her answering machine message had let him know it wasn't his fault – this wasn't something he should take personally and add to his already burdened shoulders.

So Booth had left his post, slipped back the way he had come until he was walking up the driveway. The truth was, he couldn't wait until she was alone; he didn't know when that would be. And he couldn't watch her for any longer without getting closer. It had been too many years – he was not going to make that time any longer.

Raising a hand, he'd knocked.

He couldn't remember the conversation between him and Scott Smythe, only that the guy had been in better shape than he'd first thought. He'd also managed to draw a gun on him from nowhere. But it didn't matter because there she was. Up close, she looked almost the same as the image he'd held behind his closed eyelids every night before he went to sleep. Superficially she'd changed but she'd barely aged and he suddenly felt ashamed of how her absence had taken a toll on him while she appeared to have blossomed.

He tried to read her eyes. Usually so translucent, the contacts had coloured and obscured them. Despite that, he'd seen something familiar in them, such a brief flicker that he wondered if he'd seen it at all or if he was convincing himself, finding things that weren't there.

Then, she'd turned and run and... that was where his memory stopped, halted by a blank wall of pain that was still reverberating around his skull. He opened his eyes and the pain increased but it didn't matter anymore because he could see her.

For a moment, she was as he remembered – all dark hair and green blue eyes. In their years of partnership, years of looking into her eyes, he still hadn't worked out if her eyes were blue or green.

Then, his vision cleared and her eyes were dark grey and her hair was blonde and the guy who hit him with a gun was standing behind her.

"Booth," she breathed. He ignored the crashing of his growing headache as he pulled her into his arms, wanting to feel her against him, unable to stop himself. Her breasts pushed against his chest and he could feel her ribs through the thin fabric of her shirt. She had so much less flesh than she used to but the hug was still familiar. She'd changed shampoo brands, too, but he could still smell he knew in her hair – the honey lemon smell that belonged only to her.

She loosened her grasp and reluctantly he pulled back, unwilling to release her entirely.

"Bones," he said, smiled. It had been too long since he'd been able to use the nickname that he'd endowed her with, the one that only he was able to use. She shook her head.

"Don't call me Bones." The words were so familiar to him that he smiled without meaning to, ignoring the content of them. "It's Rowan."

"Rowan Smythe," Scott finally spoke and his voice was impersonal. His eyes, when Booth looked over, were cold, the gun loose in his hands but pointing in Booth's direction.

As if reminded of her purpose, Bones moved herself backwards, out of Booth's reach.

"How did you find me, Booth?"


	16. Chapter 16

The phone rang, a harsh sound that jingled through the silent bedroom. Hodgins jumped, reached over Angela's stirring frame to answer it. They'd been waiting for Booth's call and he assumed this was it.

"Dr Hodgins, it's Steve Halloway... From section 15." It was one of the computer guys Hodgins had employed to find Dr Brennan. The same one who had contacted the weird tech guy in Seattle.

"It's late. This better be important." Angela smiled, her eyes still closed, as Jack used his serious voice.

"It is, Sir. Neo contacted us, sent us some documents. The, err, challenge of getting into the Canadian computers intrigued him so he looked into it some more. The woman's files weren't nearly as hard to get as the man's."

"Well, that's weird," Jack said.

"Yes, Sir. He uncovered some more on the male, Scott Smythe, who he was before. I'm going to send it to your phone now. I can't say for certain that it is important to what we're doing, but I believe it's significant."

"Thanks, Steve." Hodgins gently hung up the phone and grabbed his cell from his bedside table. In a few moments it hummed softly, retrieving the information Steve had sent through.

Hodgins started reading, felt Angela stirring beside him. She noted the look on his face, spread a palm over his shoulder.

"What is it?"

"Scott Smythe, the guy on the plane and the one Brennan's been hiding out with... There's something not quite right with his file."

"What?"

"It looks like he's changed identities before, swapped lives. And one of his identities... There was a warrant out for him, for murder." Hodgins looked at Angela, her previously slumbering expression now one of shock.

"You've got to ring Booth," she said at the same time Hodgins reached for the phone.

"Hodgins." Booth's voice sounded tired but cautiously elated.

"What happened?" Hodgins listened, gently slapping Angela's hand away from the receiver. He interjected occasionally but the conversation was kept short on Booth's end. As soon as Hodgins could, he interjected.

"Booth, I'm sending you some stuff our computer guy found. Things about Scott Smythe, who he was before."

When he hung up, he turned to an indignant Angela. "Well?" she asked.

"He saw her, spoke to her. She's fine – as fine as she could be." Angela frowned, waited for more then impatiently asked what had been on everyone's mind since Brennan had left.

"Did he say why?" Hodgins shook his head.

"No. I don't think he knows – she wouldn't tell him." Angela's frown lines deepened and she put both hands on her tumescent stomach, obviously miffed.

"Now what?" She asked. The search was over but nothing had been resolved – except that they knew Bren was living with a man who had killed before.

"Well, the kid wasn't hers – she was just babysitting for the woman next door."

"Babysitting? Brennan?" Angela shook her head. "That's new."

"And Booth's going to try to convince her to see us. He said she was excited when she heard you were pregnant – and sorry she hadn't known about the wedding."

"That's what happens when you just vanish. People get married and they don't know where to send the wedding invitation." Hodgins waited a minute for her sarcasm to clear before he spoke.

"Booth will call us again. He's going to get her away from whoever that guy is and get the full story out of her. I mean, if anyone can, Booth can-

"Yeah, and I thought she'd eventually realise she loved him and we'd get to see some really gorgeous babies come out of that union. And a Brennan that could finally verbalise her empathy. But neither of those things happened – she ran off with some guy who murdered someone. What if that's what she wants, for god knows what reason? If Booth finds her and nothing... She goes on living the way she was and rejects him. I don't think he could handle it, Jack." Angela's eyes filled with tears and Jack moved over to her, slid an arm under her neck, placed the other hand over hers.

"It's Booth, Angela. He's not going to take no for an answer." Angela knew Hodgins believed what he was saying, but he hadn't watched Booth and Brennan's relationship as carefully as she had. Booth may have been able to click his fingers and get any of his FBI minions or the Squints to jump into action but as soon as Bren told him to jump he'd jump before he confirmed how high.

And if Brennan told him to leave, Angela was worried he'd make it permanent for all of them. Then she would lose two friends for the price of one.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan had talked to Booth for as long as she could successfully evade his questions. He'd filled the silence adequately, told her about Angela and Hodgins. When she asked him about work he'd paused, told her he was no longer with the FBI. She'd asked him why but he didn't answer her. She couldn't imagine him not working there – it had been part of what sustained her, imagining him continuing their work without her.

When she could no longer handle the truths he was giving her, the differences in what she had imagined for those she left behind compared to the reality she faked a tiredness she didn't feel, she'd yawned. Scott had picked up on it straight away and had hustled Booth to the guest room. Now they were both in their bedroom, the door shut to muffle their voices, trying to decide what they could salvage in their next move.

"I love you," Scott said roughly. He pulled her to him, embraced her so her ribs ached from the prolonged contact.

"This is our life now, this is what we need to protect." She shook her head at his words, pushed him back from her.

"I had another life, one I'd been building for so much longer. I needed to protect that but I didn't, I ran. And now it's happening again. At what point do we say it's enough, we're ready to stop running. I went through foster homes that were... They were bad, just because my father made some shitty choices. I left people I loved. You had to leave your life before, your wife, just because of who your parents were."

"I wasn't totally honest with you," Scott said. Brennan looked into his eyes, didn't like what she saw.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't really tell you why I had to leave. It wasn't my parents who forced me to run." He took a deep breath, avoided her gaze. "I worked for _them_, and when I didn't do what they want, they decided to come after me. After my wife." Brennan felt her stomach turn to ice water. All this time she'd been living with someone who was as bad as her father, who had further perpetrated the evil that had made her leave everyone and everything she knew. That had made her leave her self behind.

"I met your father on a job we were doing when I was a lot younger. He found me through old contacts, needed me to accompany you on your flight. I really needed an out and the timing worked perfectly."

"You... Worked for them." She was stuck on that point, wondering how she'd been so wrong about him. She thought he'd been a number cruncher with a wife, someone with a picket fence dream and a crushing mortgage.

"I was... I brokered deals. I made transactions. I am an accountant – I work in money. For who and paying for what I never cared, as long as my employee came out on top. But I never crossed the line – I never killed anyone. When they asked me to, I left. I'd hoped I could just get out and go my own way but apparently it's a job for life."

"How could you? All this time-"

"I wanted to tell you, but... I fell in love with you."

"You didn't. You fell in love with someone you thought I was, someone I had to turn into because of people like you." He took a step towards her, she took a step back. She could feel the edge of the dresser behind her.

"What if this is the real you?"

"This isn't the real me. I'm Temperance Brennan!"

"Or you were, after you changed your name the last time. What if the last few years have been you, enjoying the little things in life, letting the background fade away. You haven't been ensconced in the academic world, ignoring everything else because of your work. You've been able to be... you."

"Fuck you." Her words were vicious because he'd hit a vein of truth, and she hated that he could do that to her. It had been necessity that she'd remade herself; changed her hair colour, her eye colour, her body type. Even deeper, changed the way she spoke and the job she did. She was another version, but this version felt closer to the truth of who she really was, who Joy may have grown up to be. Temperance Brennan had hidden behind her science and her ideals and her rationalisations that had been built around her through years of practice, of pushing people away and constructing walls around herself. But Rowan Smythe was loved, and she had loved; she'd proven that by leaving. She was a 'hot wife', a babysitter for Joey, someone who helped her elderly neighbour by pruning rosebushes without being asked. She was nowhere near the impressive woman she'd been as Temperance Brennan but she had taken the advice Angela had given once; _You have been working every day since i met you. it's time to let another part of you out into the sun._

Without death and murder being a part of her daily routine she'd been able to stretch and grow. She'd always viewed her forensic anthropology as something integral to who she was, but three years away had not made her feel any less whole. She was surprised at how much she hadn't missed it, and she wondered, not for the first time, if it was not just necessity that had allowed her to survive without it but if it was because she had Scott. A liar, lying beside her every night.

He took another step towards her. She wanted to move away but she was cornered. The urge to run was strong but she had nowhere to go. She'd run here with him, to this country and this house and she'd had enough time to make backup plans in case it all went wrong – but all the plans involved him.

"Rowan, I love you. And I'm not going to leave you, or lose you. It's us against them. We leave now and start again somewhere else, together, or we stay and fight and risk being separated."

"If we stay they'll know we've been alive all this time. The whole reason we left everyone behind – they'll start killing them to get us to come out. I left them to save them, I can't put them at risk again."

"Then we run. Together." She looked at his eyes, at the determination in them. Here was a man who wanted to be with her, wanted to keep running with her. And she would feel no guilt over that because he had to run too. They were in the same metaphorical boat.

But in the other room, a man who, she now believed, as much as she believed in love, loved her. And he'd given up some of his life to search for her despite the fact that she'd told him not to and had left him without any proper goodbye. She had no doubt he would do it again, and again; she would never outrun him. She wanted to stop running, to stand still so he could catch her but she didn't know how to do it, not after the elaborate escape she had already engaged in. He'd shown her the article he carried with him that announced Temperance Brennan's death. She could never be who she was before – she had done what she set out to do. She was dead, but that hadn't been enough for him. He had, along with Hodgins and Angela, persisted and he had found her. She still couldn't determine her reaction to that. It did mean she could never truly disappear, no matter what her disguise was. And it meant he would never continue his life without her.

"Scott..." He covered the final distance between them and put a hand against her cheek.

"Don't say anything. Just think about what you want to do. I'm going to go get our other documents." He was referring to more passports, ways out of their current life that they'd been carefully gathering over the years in case another disappearance was necessary. Brennan had always thought their new passports would be used because of an actual threat to their safety, a man with a gun in the night. Instead, the man she compared the width of Scott's shoulders and the colour of his eyes to was the reason they may have to kill the Smythes and call each other by new names.

"The guy, Booth. You sure he's not going to hurt you?"

She nodded, forced herself not to push him away. She couldn't stand his presence for much longer without giving herself time to think about it. He'd appropriated a perfect husband for three years without telling her something that she had a right to know – something that was part of their current life, not just a fragment of a past neither of them acknowledged.

He moved to kiss her but she pulled back, not able to take that much physical connection. She closed her eyes, willing him to go away. Eventually his footsteps were a fading echo and Brennan slid to the floor where she was, willing the genius part of her brain that she'd left dormant for so long to kick in, to rationalise the colossal events that had elapsed over the last few hours. She'd gone with something she didn't believe in – love – the last time she had run and all that had earned her was a lying faux-husband, the death of her former self and the burden of knowing she'd been part of the reason Booth quit doing what he loved and spent his time seeking her out instead of living his life the way he had before she'd entered it. She wasn't going to let love interfere with this decision.


	17. Chapter 17

Booth lay on top of the bed in the guestroom and listened to the muffled voices of Bones and Scott talking in their room. From their tones, he guessed it was an argument. He was going to stay awake, listening, just in case they decided to make a getaway. He wasn't sure how he would stop them but he was not letting her get away again.

After explaining how Hodgins had found them and answering all her questions about Parker and the Squints, and what he was doing, Booth had run out of things to say. He tried to ask about her, what she had been doing for the last three years. She was evasive, guarded. She'd also lost the youthful excitement he remembered of her – when she was lecturing him about something she was passionate about, when she was watching an old mummy movie, when she suddenly got a joke that should have gone right over her head. Booth tried not to care. Everyone changed, that was something Bones had taught him. He could almost hear her voice in his head; _Entropy is a natural force that pulls everything apart at a subatomic level. Everything changes._ He had just wished those changes had happened when he was a part of her life, when he was there to exact an entro-whatever force on her, not Scott.

He went back to a question he had wanted to ask since he'd walked into her apartment and felt his life change.

"How did you get all that blood, for your apartment. We checked every sample – it was all yours. Were... Did anyone hurt you?" She hesitantly shook her head.

"I did it. Filled two blood bags from a vein in my arm." She looked down, then back at him, her eyes glistening with more than the plastic of her contact lenses. Then she looked over her shoulder and yawned.

Booth hadn't even noticed that Scott was back, so intently had he been fixated on Bones. But the yawn summoned him like a British guard dog and he hustled himself over to Booth and hauled him up before marching him upstairs.

"It's best if you stay here... Bathroom is down the hall. Don't even try to leave or see her." Unceremoniously shoving him into what was obviously a guest room, Scott had slammed the door.

Then he'd eased himself onto the bed and waited. For what, he didn't know, but he sensed the argument might have something to do with it. Selfishly, he was pleased he was driving a wedge between what looked like a cozy domestic setup.

Hodgins called while he was waiting and he flipped his phone open, gave them an update. Hodgins said one of his tech guys had turned something else up and Booth waited for it to come through on his phone. When it finally did, he skimmed through but found himself having to reread what he'd already read, to make sure he understood what it meant.

"That bastard," he muttered under his breath. As he was getting up off the bed, he heard footsteps in the hall that were too heavy to be Bones'. She had a delicate way of carrying herself, despite her height, that constantly made him feel like a bear lumbering by her side.

The footsteps passed his door, faded as they went down the stairs. Booth listened for another set of footsteps but all was silent until the front door was opened and closed. Opening his door cautiously, Booth crept along the hallway towards the window at the end that looked over the front driveway. Twitching the curtain aside he could see Scott Smythe getting into the car alone.

That meant...

Booth turned and looked at the pale circle of light that beckoned him towards the open door of the main bedroom.

He knocked gently on the open door and heard no answer. Stepping into the room, he didn't see her at first, hunched against the dresser. Her hair was white gold drapery that concealed her face.

"Bones," he said softly, briefly hesitating before crossing to her. She looked up, impatiently pushed back her hair.

She'd taken her contacts out and Booth was surprised at how much this affected him – his memories of her were an onslaught. Every promise he'd made, every part of herself she'd revealed to him and that he, in turn, had given back while looking into her eyes rushed through his mind. He could still remember the first time he'd seen her eyes, in a lecture theatre which she was commanding like someone much older despite the fact that she looked younger than a lot of the students in the room. She'd entranced him with her looks, later with her intelligence, still later with her heart. Looking at her eyes now, remembering everything they had together convinced him that the last three years he'd spent denying himself the comfort of accepting her death had been worth it.

"I still can't believe you found me, Booth." Her eyes were also where she'd aged, something he hadn't seen when looking into them when they were darkened. Though her life as Temperance Brennan had involved so much death, it appeared the last three years of her life had saddened her so much more, if Booth was correct in what he could see in the depths of her clouded eyes.

"It took longer than I wanted. You're good at everything you do, Bones. This was no exception." His attempt at lightening the moment didn't even bring the twitch of a smile to her face. He had come closer to her and crouched without touching her. Now he reached out, placed a hand over the two she had resting loosely on her drawn up knees.

"Why, Bones?" He kept using the familiar nickname which still felt slightly rusty as it passed his teeth, old from disuse.

She removed one of her hands from his and used it to wipe at the single tear that traced its way towards her jaw.

"I thought... I was convinced it was the right thing to do." He knew how set Temperance Brennan was with her morals – though they appeared to follow no biblical or empirical rules she would adhere to them as strictly as the pope followed the ten commandments. If she thought there was injustice in the world or saw a way to make something right, leave some goodness where there was none before, she would do it. If she set out to do what she was convinced was right, there would be no changing her mind.

"Who told you that?" Booth asked gently. She gripped his hand tighter, as if sensing he would need comfort for her answer. Or maybe she was steeling herself to deliver the bad news.

"My father."

Booth sank from his crouch into a sitting position. His knees, damaged from his time in the army and, later, his love of basketball and ice hockey would not hold him up any longer. As well as that, thoughts of Bones' father being the one to make her leave him, leave all of them and everything she'd worked towards since Max had abandoned her the first time took the wind out of him.

"What did he say to you?" Booth tried to keep his voice light but saw she had felt the edge in it.

"The organisation he and my mother fled from are cleaning up. They were going to come after Russ, after me." Realisation dawned on Booth's face.

"We tried to get through to Russ, to tell him what had happened. We found Hailey but she said he'd left her and she didn't have any way to get in touch with him. We didn't realise..." Bones nodded.

"He disappeared too. He's called Joseph now. I haven't seen him since I..."

"Why couldn't you have stayed? Kept your head down, hired bodyguards, given me the information so I could track these bastards down and put them away. I still don't understand why."

"It wasn't just me, Booth, like it wasn't just Russ. They'd been watching everyone we loved – Amy, the girls, Hodgins, Zach, Angela, you... Parker." She pulled his hand to her, nestled it against him more closely. "I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to any of you because of me."

"No," Booth said more forcefully then he'd intended. "It wasn't up to you to feel guilty. It was your father." He spat out the word. It felt dirty to him. Why was it always the sins of the fathers that feel so heavily on the shoulders of their children.

"I know. I didn't understand my future prediction of guilt. It wasn't rational. But it was undeniable, Booth. If anything happened to any of you..." Her breath hitched and her eyed filled with tears that her lashed tried to absorb, failed; there was just too much.

"Shh," Booth pulled her close to him, the second embrace since he'd descended upon her new life, determined to get answers. He'd finally got the answer he wanted but it didn't make him any happier. Where would they go from here? Her tiny frame relaxed against him and he ran his hands along her arms, up and down her spine, trying to give her as much comfort as he could manage. She'd given up a career she loved, a career she worked her whole life to get just to save the people she loved. Anyone who thought Temperance Brennan was a cold woman, devoid of empathy and dedicated only to her work were brilliantly, dazzlingly proven wrong. But they would never know – only Booth could know the sacrifices she'd made.

"I don't know what to do know, Booth." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "We," Booth's jaw clenched at her casual use of the plural pronoun, "had other plans, if things went wrong here but..." She sighed softly, the breath caressing him. "I don't want to start again. I don't want to run again. I'm tired of being someone else."

Booth pulled back slightly, already aching to feel her against him again but needing to look in her eyes.

"There's something about Scott you need to know."

xXx xXx xXx

Scott drove the car towards the cashless bank. It had safety deposit boxes and was open at all hours – exactly what he needed.

Together, he and Rowan had carefully been building alternative exit strategies – ways to get out of this life and into another with a minimum of fuss. They'd been placed here largely by Rowan's father and, while she trusted him, Scott did not. He didn't know how much the old man knew of his past.

There were things he hadn't told Rowan, even after his latest confession to her, things he didn't like to remember. He'd moved here with her because he'd needed an out at a crucial time, and Max had believed him. He just hadn't known what situation he was getting out of. Despite his wiles, Max had been desperate for someone to accompany his daughter, to make sure she stayed hidden, to alleviate the terror a father could feel for his daughter when she was out of reach.

Scott had fit the bill perfectly and, stupidly, Max hadn't looked much further. It had been Scott's plan to use Temperance as a bargaining chip, to deliver Max to the people who wanted him and to get Scott leverage with the same people who had made sure his murder charge would stick, if he could be found and brought to a court of law. A murder charge that he was facing only because of the very people who wanted to persecute him.

But from the first moment he'd seen her, bewildered, saddened, burdened but resolved at the airport, he'd questioned his plan. He decided to wait, told himself he would give Max time to settle in to his new life, make sure he wasn't looking over his shoulder. But in the waiting he'd come to admire the woman who lived with him, who became as much a wife to him as if he'd asked her to marry him himself rather than residing in the arranged marriage they had. As much as he hated to admit it, he'd fallen in love. And love made people do stupid things.

Scott pulled up outside the bank and hurried inside. He'd been stupid not to ask her about her past, about anyone that would come looking. Truthfully, he hadn't wanted to know about it, had wanted her all to himself without thinking of the people who had been in her life. And he'd been stupider still to relax, to think they might be 'safe', untouchable.

Scott passed through the security checks and cleared out the contents of the box. Money and passports filled the brown paper bag and he paused for a minute, almost laughed at the cliché of it.

Nodding to the security guards as he passed back through the security barriers, Scott tried not to run as he got back into his car. He needed to get back to her and take her away – after he made sure the man that had followed her would never be able to find her again.


	18. Chapter 18

Booth looked across as she made calls, left messages on answering machines, that would untangle her from the plethora of social obligations that she had acquired since she became Rowan Smythe. Her accent had changed slightly, something that was barely noticeable except that Booth was so finely attuned to her voice, to the nuances in it.

They were in his car and he was driving them, reinvoking memories of cases together, driving towards a dead body, a suspect, the lab. Booth had let her read what was on his phone, had patiently explained how they'd found this information. He didn't know whether she could believe it, whether three years of trusting someone could be torn apart by the findings of a nicknamed hacker in Seattle. But it had been enough to put doubt in her mind, prompting their night drive.

Her phone rang and she stared at the screen for a moment. "It's Scott," she said without surprise, then looked over at him almost apologetically.

"I have to talk to him, Booth." She flipped her phone open without waiting for an answer and put it to her ear.

"Scott." Booth could hear how her voice changed slightly as she talked to him. His knuckles gripped the steering wheel more tightly.

"I'm okay... No, I'm fine... He showed me something about you... He wouldn't do that. I think you should... Okay... Yes. I want to see them... Yes, I left messages. I told them what we agreed." She listened for a long time as Booth tried desperately what was being said on the other end of the phone. "Scott... I know." Her last few words before she hung up were filled with tears and Booth wondered what he'd said to make her cry. She took a moment, looking out at the dark houses beyond the window, before she turned to speak.

"We have to go back to the house, clean out the few personal things... Dispose of them."

"Is that really-"

"You found us, Booth. Is it really that much of a stretch to think that someone else could?" She sounded resentful and Booth pulled the car over to the side of the road and threw it into park.

"Do you want to know why I never gave up looking? Why I wouldn't believe in your death?" She shook her head slowly, looking almost reluctant to hear his next words.

"Because..." Now he'd started, he didn't want to finish. He hadn't wanted to influence her decision in what she did next but now he knew what kind of man Scott Smythe was he was desperate, ready to use any means to convince her to stay away from him. Even if that meant baring his soul.

"Bones, I love you." She started to speak and he moved a hand up, fingers against her lips to still them.

"Since we first met I was... You amazed me. I tried but I can't be with anyone else because they'll never match you. So if you really were dead, I would be alone forever. And that was something I couldn't live with."

A long silence.

Booth looked at her, willing her to respond. Her eyes flicked down to his hand, still resting loosely on her lips and he moved it down, rested it near her lap.

"You... you love me?" Her voice was tentative, almost didn't get the words out audibly.

"You, Bones, or Rowan, or whoever you need to be. Because the real you, under all that, never changes." Her eyes, the contacts firmly back in place since she was outside her own home, closed briefly. One tear was released, then another.

"I never thought..." She sighed, opened her eyes, folded soft fingers with his. "Before this, Booth, I could never have let you love me. I never believed in love past the chemical components that make up a reaction. But now..." She looked straight at him, tilted her head in the way he remembered she would when she was considering something.

"I never loved him, Booth. He told me he loved me, and I pretended because it was easier than seeing the hurt in his eyes but I never loved him back. I couldn't, because of all the ways that he wasn't you."

It was what he'd waited years to hear, not just the years that she'd been gone but the years before as well. It wasn't an 'I love you' in the common sense but it was better than that because it was all in the way she said it, the way only she could say it.

Then she dropped his hand and tapped lightly on his knee, reminding him they were sitting by the side of the road at two a.m. Booth pulled back onto the street and drove them away from the lonely stretch of road.

Her hand remained on his knee and looked down at it, smiled to himself. Whatever happened after this would happen to both of them, together.

xXx xXx xXx

Scott emptied the contents of the office drawers into the trash bag he was holding. They kept less documents than most people, but there was still correspondence that needed to be destroyed.

He'd spoken to her briefly, and he replayed the conversation as he methodically wiped down surfaces. She'd sounded distant and he sensed she'd gone back to Temperance, gone back to her bones and her books and him; the man who had never stopped looking. But why would he?

Scott placed Rowan's manuscripts in a separate box and deposited them outside the door. Satisfied the office was cleaned and dragging the rubbish bag after him, he closed the office door.

His plan was to get back here and get Rowan. He'd send her ahead while he dealt with the man who had so effectively ruined their lives here, then catch up with her. He had already considered several countries; South Africa, Paris, Australia. He'd like to go somewhere warm, where she would get a tan and wear less and be happy. But it had fallen apart when his past had finally caught up to him; he was stupid, again, for assuming it never would.

Now he needed a new plan. He could never use her to clear his name, not anymore. He would protect her with his life, if it came to that, instead of giving her up to save his own the way he had originally intended.

Scott carefully wiped the kitchen benches and cupboards free from fingerprints. The cutlery and cookware would still be a risk but he figured the yokel cops would be more concerned with what happened to them rather than who they really were.

It was obvious the man, Booth, was in love with her. He'd looked for her for three years, had never given up hope even after she'd been declared dead. You didn't show that much dedication for a mere friend. Was she in love with him?

Scott wiped the basin of the downstairs bathroom as he considered it. She'd discussed love with him once and he came to the conclusion that she didn't really believe in love, which was why he'd never expected to hear a returning 'I love you'. Which hadn't stopped him wanting it.

Pulling off his gloves as he heard a car pull into the driveway, Scott patted a hand on the reassuring bulge at the small of his back. He still had a chance to convince her that he was the man she'd lived with for three years, not the man she'd read about in the files. Although he was only meant to be Scott Smythe for five years, at the most, he felt like this was his true identity and that she'd moulded him into it, released his sins from him.

But he couldn't convince her of that with Booth by her side, feeding information that would only harm their relationship. He had to go.

xXx xXx xXx

Brennan walked up the front steps, Booth several paces behind. The lights they had left on inside were still burning. She couldn't see their car but it didn't mean Scott wasn't here; he may have parked it around a corner.

Opening the unlocked front door, Brennan walked cautiously inside. She wasn't afraid of Scott but she was wary. He knew that Booth had told her about him and she couldn't predict how that would make him feel or react. It was obviously something he had kept carefully hidden, had not even told her in his moment of truthfulness earlier in the night. He'd done the opposite – lied to her face about not killing anyone.

"Rowan." He was cleaning, clearing the house, ridding it of their existence.

"Scott." She didn't know what else to say, didn't trust herself to speak without recrimination passing her lips. She believed Booth, believed what he'd shown her especially since the name Scott had given her when she asked, back before any of this, matched - but she owed it to Scott to hear his side of the story.

"I've packed a bag for you." He motioned to the black leather bag on the table and she nodded, didn't even look at it.

"Tell me it's not true. That you're not... That you haven't taken a life." Her words invited a lie but her eyes spoke differently, wanting only the truth for once.

"Not as me." His tone was pleading. "Rowe, you've changed me... Who I am now has nothing to do with who I was." She nodded silently, needing only that cryptic admittance. Booth's information was right, and she'd been living with a killer for the past three years.

Booth stepped forward, placed a hand on her shoulder. She drew strength from it, glanced back at him. He looked at her and there was a moment where she felt as though the last three years could be erased, that he could forgive her for leaving him.

Movement from Scott made her look back to him as he drew a small revolver, pointed it at Booth. His eyes were cold and she couldn't recognise him, couldn't see the man she thought she knew from countless nights lying next to each other.

"No!" Brennan pushed Booth back with all the strength she had and he stumbled, feet catching on the rug behind him. She leapt towards Scott, muscles from hours of running bunching and releasing, flying her forward fluidly.

She wasn't in time. The gun went off and she saw and felt the spark as the gunpowder in the bullet ignited, sent it smoothly in a trajectory that tore through her upper shoulder, punched her backwards.

She saw Scott's horrified look, recognised him once more as the man who had bought her an engagement ring, told her unequivocally that he loved her in an Italian restaurant with the scent of herbs scenting the air and red wine flushing their faces. Then her hand reflexively moved up to the wound, touched it and sent white hot flames of pain licking along her spine. She writhed, grimaced and lost her battle with the blackness edging her vision. The last thing she saw was Scott re-aiming the gun but she wasn't conscious long enough to hear a second shot.


	19. Chapter 19

"Hodgins, I need help." Hodgins sat up, groggy, groping for the button on his watch to set it aglow and tell him the time.

"Booth, what-"

"I need to get back to California, get out of here anyway. Bones, she got shot-"

"What!" Hodgins sat up, pulling the sheet with him accidentally. Angela grumbled, pulled it back towards her, not waking despite his forceful tone.

"She's alive but they'll never let her fly on a commercial plane with the gunshot and she doesn't want to go to a hospital because they'll call Scott and he's the one who shot her even though the bastard was trying to get me." Booth paused for breath, aware that panic was in his tone. Years of training should have quenched his panic before it started to spread, but one look at the pale woman bleeding in the back seat of his car made him want to hyperventilate and vomit simultaneously. Why the hell had she pushed him back and stepped in front of that maniac? Why hadn't she let him take the bullet?

"Booth, dude, just breath."

"Hodgins, the woman I lo-... Just don't 'dude' me right now, okay?" Booth realised his words were sharper than he intended, let out a slow sigh.

"Sorry-"

"It's fine, Booth." He could hear the thoughtfulness in Hodgins' tone and waited to hear what followed.

"How bad is the wound?" Booth walked around to the open backseat door. She'd gained consciousness as he'd placed her in the car, careful not to jostle her shoulder. The blood had seeped onto his jacket when he carried her and he could feel it, cooling and hardening against his chest.

His first thought had been to take her straight to a hospital, do not pass go, do not collect $200. But she'd clutched at him when she'd realised where they were driving and why they were going so fast.

"Booth, not the hospital – they have to report gunshots, they'll never let me out until they call him."

"Bones, you're bleeding everywhere. You got shot. You need a hospital"

"It's not... Not that bad. I can feel-" He heard her short gasps of pain as she probed her own wound and tightened his hands on the steering wheel.

"No major arteries have been hit, so I won't die from blood loss-."

"You're not going to die, Bones, because you're going to go to a Doctor and get fixed up." His voice was tightly controlled fury, betraying his desire to turn around and finish the beating he'd started to give Scott. He'd reached Scott before another shot could be fired and grabbed the gun, breaking his finger when it caught the trigger guard. Then it had been silent hand-to-hand combat, Booth too aware of Bones bleeding behind them. He'd gone straight for maximum damage, ducking slightly then pounding the taller guy's ribs and sternum before finishing with a crushing blow to the jaw that had left him passed out, slumped in an untidy pile on the floor. He'd felt like killing him but he didn't – there was too much death in his life already and the time it would have taken was less time that he could spend with Bones.

Gathering up the bag Scott had already packed for Bones, the paper bag that was on the table next to it and the pile of papers in a box next to the door that looked as if they were put there to be disposed of, Booth had run them out to the car and dumped them quickly aware of the time, rushing onward, beating alongside the blood that was pounding in his ears.

It was a quiet neighbourhood; someone had to have heard the gunshot and called the police. He wasn't sure how long response times were in this country but he was sure they were comparable to America.

Then it had come time to move Bones. She was feather light so that he misjudged and poured too much strength into lifting her from the floor. She was crushed to his chest and he winced as more blood spilled from her open wound.

Then he'd placed her in the car, wrapped her wound as best he could and got them the hell out of there.

"Booth, no-" It was the last thing she'd said to him in the car before she was gone again, unconsciousness mercifully dragging her back away from her pain. The anguish in her tone caused him to pull the car over and call Hodgins, hoping for some way out of this that involved never seeing Scott Smythe again.

Booth concentrated on Hodgins again. "She got shot in the shoulder. There's a lot of blood but I've wrapped a shirt around it and it's not bleeding as badly. She's passed out, though."

"Is there a hole in the back and front of her shoulder?" Hodgins' voice was calming and Booth felt more rational, talking through it with someone else.

"Yeah. It went straight through."

"It sounds like she could realistically go another hour without a hospital."

"That still doesn't help us. If I take her to a hospital they're going to call the police and they're going to call her-" Booth's voice choked over the word, "husband."

"Booth, you forget I'm one of the richest men in America. Admittedly I don't flaunt my wealth terribly, except for that last sentence-"

"Hodgins!"

"I need to make a few calls but I can have a plane for you. It will fly you from a private airfield in Canada to one just outside Los Angeles. It'll take me a little longer but I can have a don't-ask-don't-tell medical team aboard who will have five hours to help Dr Brennan without any calls going out to the police or the fucktard who shot her."

Booth exhaled, leant against the car. He felt like the light at the end of the tunnel had turned out to be a megawatt tungsten.

"Hodgins-"

"Just get her back here, okay? In one piece." Turning away from his sleeping wife, Jack Hodgins' spoke his next words more softly. "We need to see her. Bring her home, Booth."

"I will." It was a promise he would have to keep and Booth squinted in at Bones' unconscious figure, loose limbed in slumber. She'd never told him she wanted to see anyone again, that she wanted anything to do with her old life. But, to save _her_ life this time, this was one decision he was going to make for her.

"I'll send you some coordinates for the airfield you can put into your GPS. What kind of car are you driving?" Booth gave Hodgins the details then flipped his phone shut, disconnecting the call.

He looked up at the night sky, starting to lighten with the promise of dawn. Would she have been shot if he hadn't looked for her? Would she still be living out each day in a life far more conventional then the one she had left? Had she been happier before he showed up?

Booth took one last look into the backseat then closed the door softly. His phone hummed in his hand and he looked at what Hodgins had sent through, punched it into the car's GPS. In a few minutes it told him to take the next left and he started the car and accelerated away.

xXx xXx xXx

She remembered the feeling of blood trickling down her arm and back, pain, more pain, then a numbing feeling that left her lips tingling and her shoulder pleasantly warm.

She felt pressure in her ears and briefly wondered why. Was she in a plane? Was she ascending a mountain?

"Bones." Wherever she was, as soon as she heard his voice she felt irrationally safer. He'd come to find her. He loved her. Then... She struggled to remember, to pull a solid memory out of the wisps of foggy images that clouded her mind.

"Booth, what..." She looked for him among the white gowned people that hovered around her. Was she in a hospital on a mountain?

"Scott-" Booth's last words were lost as she suddenly remembered what had happened. Booth, telling her he loved her. Scott, trying to shoot him. Her, getting in the way.

"I said no hospitals." She tried to sit up, was forced back down promptly by gloved hands that exacerbated her panic. Soon it would be the police, then they would call Scott.

"Booth you need to leave – he's going to-." Gloved hands again forced her down, with Booth's hands helping.

"Shh, Bones, no he's not. We're not in a hospital." She looked around again, registered more than just the nurses and doctor hidden behind their surgical masks. They were in a narrow area with blackness outside the thick windows. The insistent hum of engines finally broke through her subconscious and Brennan looked up at Booth, questioning.

"Hodgins got a plane for us. And a medical team. We're flying to Los Angeles."

xXx xXx xXx

Booth looked down at Bones. She was so pale against the white of the hospital gurney that had appeared with the team of medical attendants who had hustled Booth onto the

place. His passport was checked by an airfield official but they neglected Bones, probably being paid extra to ignore proper protocol.

He couldn't tell how she felt about leaving Canada so abruptly, the place where, it looked, she had made such a comfortable life for herself. When he'd delivered the news that they were flying back to America, her eyes had closed again, dark grey hidden by heavy lids. Her face was breathtaking in repose, the pain that had twisted it previously worn away by the drugs she had been administered.

He made sure he was out of the way of the doctor and her team of competent nurses who were busy stitching and poking at the wound with painful looking silver instruments. Then he sat and grabbed her hands, trying to warm the coolness of it with his own heat.

xXx xXx xX

Angela fidgeted, twisted in her seat, adjusted the strap of her shoe. Hodgins gave her a look.

"I know... But she hasn't seen me for over three years and I got fat."

"You got pregnant, Ange. And you're beautiful." Hodgins couldn't believe Angela was worried about the way she looked. Dr Brennan didn't care about how people looked most of the time; he'd always been amazed at what a non-judgemental person she had been when they worked together. Then again, it was easier to worry about what she might be thinking about them now rather than worrying about why she had left.

"I just..." Angela slumped back on the couch and looked out at the view. They were in Topanga Canyon, overlooking the trees leading down to a gorge carved out of the landscape by millions of years of water tracking downstream, finding its way to the ocean. It was a company house they were in, owned by one of the many Cantilever institutions. There were countless real estate investments dotted around the world but this had been the closest to the airfield Hodgins had arranged for the plane to fly into.

"How long until they get here?" She was worse than a petulant child and Jack checked his watch for the fifteenth time.

"They landed half an hour ago. They should be here in about five or ten minutes." Angela sighed again, her hand straying back to her hair, twirling long strands around her finger.

"And they said she was fine?" She was referring to the medical team Hodgins had called. They'd phoned in as soon as they landed to give him an update.

"The bullet entered her shoulder, went straight through. There's soft tissue damage and blood loss but they put fluids in and repaired what they could before bandaging. I can probably take the stitches out in a few weeks, or she can do it herself. It depends..." Jack left the rest unspoken and Angela glanced at him sharply. They didn't know what she wanted to do now. Booth still hadn't let them know why she left or if it was her decision to come back. Jack only knew that she'd been shot and they'd needed to get away from her 'husband'.

"I hear a car." Angela stood up, head cocked to the side, hands instinctively resting lightly on her stomach. Jack heard it too, the crunch of gravel under the SUV tyres. They looked at each other, both suddenly worried. It had been so long, such anticipation... Neither knew quite what to expect.

xXx xXx xX

Booth helped her out of the car and Brennan took his hand gratefully. The painkillers were wearing off and her arm was starting to hurt, needles of pain biting at her wound.

"Thanks." She smiled as he shut the door behind her and placed a protective arm at her back. She knew she looked like she hadn't slept all night but he looked refreshed. The stubble he had grown suited him, hid the hollowness of his cheeks. She couldn't remember seeing him with stubble but she liked it.

He'd told her they were flying into Los Angeles before she'd blacked out again, this time for the rest of the journey. She'd awoken when he'd been trying to sit her up so her could move her into the SUV Hodgins had made sure was waiting at the airport for them. He'd been trying to manoeuvre her arms around him so he had a better grasp on her. She'd awoken to see his face inches from hers, his warmth breath blowing across her cheek, moving her hair.

"Booth..." Her voice had been tentative, letting him know she was awake. His eyes had moved straight to hers, away from the wound she knew he'd been trying to avoid in case he hurt her.

He hadn't needed to say a thing; his eyes meeting hers was all she needed to feel like she was finally safe, even if she knew it wasn't rational and that nothing had changed except that there was one more person she had to add to the list of those who were out to kill her.

She'd clutched him tighter, felt the catch in his breath as she entwined her body around his so he could carry her to the car. She'd smelt the warmth in him, from where his pulse beat steadily in his throat, the man smell that was unique to him.

Now his strength carried her again, buoyed her to the front door that was swinging open to reveal two more people that she never would have left behind if she thought she didn't have to.

"Angela," it was all Brennan had to say before her friend was running into her arms, catching her in a hug that forgot about her shoulder, or Angela's pregnant stomach. It was a hug that was forgiving and accepting.

Then it was Hodgins in her arms. He held her a little more tenderly, remembering the bullet wound, the history between them, the reason they were now tucked into this mountain cabin together rather than standing on a lab platform, trading intellect and handling remains. He pulled her back so he could look at her properly.

"Welcome back, Dr Brennan."


	20. Chapter 20

Booth lay in an unfamiliar bed again, listening to the sounds of the house and the forest settling around him. Wind moaned in the trees overhead and he could hear the pings as leaves hit the windows before swirling onward, searching for their final settling place.

Angela and Hodgins had ushered Bones into the house as soon as she'd arrived. At first they'd been restrained but Angela couldn't help herself; she'd asked every question she'd wanted answered. To her credit, Bones had answered, letting Booth know more than he did now. She'd also declined their invitation to call Cam and Zach for her. Booth could see it hurt her to refuse to contact them but she was, as always, being rational and keeping them out of this; the less people who knew, the better. Eventually, though, her face had grown paler, her answers slower and her arm and shoulder movement markedly more sluggish.

Booth had noticed it first and had motioned to Angela, who had immediately shown Brennan to one of the guest rooms. They'd heard water running; a shower, before it was all quiet.

Then, all three of them had stayed up, pondering on her return. They had openly wondered about what would happen next. According to public record, Brennan was officially dead, with her money going to various charities, as nominated by her. Surprising to Booth was the call he got from her lawyer soon after she was declared deceased letting him know the bulk of her estate was to go to him. He'd left it largely untouched, too hopeful she may need it one day. Even more surprising, and something that had made he and Rebecca both tear up when he told her - Bones had established a generous trust for Parker to be used for college, or travel; whatever he wanted. Booth didn't know when she had set it up but he knew it would have been before she left since she didn't even know she was going to be leaving.

After Bones had departed, the Jeffersonian had dissolved their forensic department and its ties with the FBI. Booth was no longer an FBI agent, Hodgins no longer dealt in slime and bugs, Zach had not followed an academic path and Angela painted happy scenes, not death masks. Everything had changed.

They hadn't come to any conclusions on the next step before they'd all decided to retire to bed, to talk more in the morning. Despite everything that was different they were all still optimistic, still exultant over the return of the person who had prompted all those changes.

Now Booth stretched out on his back, finding comfort in the wind. It was lonely outside but he was inside where, three doors down, Bones lay.

xXx xXx xX

She couldn't sleep. The ache in her shoulder was worse but she didn't want to take any more pain killers. They didn't know Scott like she did; when he was determined, he could do anything. And she was sure he would be determined to find her. She didn't want anything numbing her if she had to see him again, to stop him hurting Booth.

Sitting up, and pausing a minute for the pain moving her arm brought, Brennan sighed. She'd drifted in and out of consciousness while the others were talking, had heard some of their suppositions and theories on what might come next. The truth was she had about as much idea as them. This was never meant to happen. She was never meant to be found.

Now she was she wasn't sure what to do. She and Scott had talked about what to do if their cover was blown and they'd come up with a lot of plans, all of which had involved the paper bag at the foot of her bed, the one Booth had taken with them when he'd carried her away from her house.

There were passports in there, countless ones they'd been assembling over their time together. But they were all for married couples, all names that Scott could easily trace. She certainly couldn't stay Rowan Smythe anymore, as much as she'd actually grown used to that name.

Getting up, Brennan sighed, shifted her arm into a more comfortable position. She hated introspectives at midnight. Maybe a glass of warm milk would help her sleep better.

xXx xXx xX

Booth sat up in bed, his hearing tuned to the soft footsteps that were passing by his room. Angela and Hodgins were staying in the main bedroom which was further away from the kitchen. And he was quite sure Angela would make Hodgins get her whatever she needed from the kitchen rather than walk there herself. Plus he knew those footsteps from hearing them walk towards him, past him, away from him thousands of times before.

Booth pulled the sheet off himself and stood, still listening. The footsteps were disappearing into the kitchen, where the back door was.

He opened the door quietly and moved along the hallway, more shadow than man, expecting to see the back door opening and closing.

Instead he caught sight of a silhouette in the glow from the fridge and his breath caught. He recognised it so well, despite the additional slenderness she had. Her waist was still tiny, tucking in from breasts that had been much admired in the FBI coffee room, if the conversations Booth had overheard were any indication. Her legs were long, shoulders graceful and her hands were always so _Bones_. She had her own mannerisms that time hadn't erased and he saw it now, in the bend of her fingers as she reached for the milk.

"Bones," he spoke and she dropped the milk, whirled towards him, eyes startled. The contacts were out again as she slept and her eyes were mirrors in the half light, reflecting his own image back at him.

"Sorry," he had crossed to her and quickly was stooping to pick up the milk bottle at the same time she did but her sharp intake of breath made him realise her arm wouldn't permit quick movements like that.

Stepping over the milk he picked her up and sat her on the counter, ignoring her stiffness as his hands lifted her effortlessly away from the white puddle on the floor.

There was silence as he wiped the milk away with paper towels, then quietly, "I wasn't leaving, Booth."

He swore silently, concentrated more intently on wiping up until the floor was cleaner than it had been before. When he stood and turned to her she was looking at him, her face so painfully familiar to him that he had to lean on the counter behind him for a minute to take it in.

"I just wanted warm milk. I couldn't sleep." She sounded child-like and Booth couldn't help but let a small smile hover around the corner of his mouth despite knowing, and despising, what was keeping her awake.

"I'll make you some." He picked up the carton of milk; there was enough left in there for one glass of milk. Pouring it into a saucepan that he found in the fifth cupboard he opened, Booth put it on the stove and stirred, waiting for it to heat up.

"How's your arm?" He asked. Anything to fill the silence that was growing, filling the room, taking his air so he couldn't breathe.

"It's fine." As always, she was stubborn and Booth turned to see her cradling it. He raised his eyebrows pointedly.

"It hurts a little," she conceded and he nodded, turned back to the milk, this victory his.

He heard her sliding off the bench and come to a stop behind him. He couldn't breathe, waiting to see what she would do next.

A thin arm reached beside him, brushed his side, pulling a mug from the shelf to the left of the stove and setting it beside him. He poured the milk into it and placed the saucepan quietly in the sink, reaching as far as he could to get it there. He didn't want to move away from the warmth at his side, her warmth.

She took a few mouthfuls before her eyes met his over her cup and she set it aside, turned to face him.

"You never stopped looking. For all that time." She was close to him, almost touching him every time she breathed. He felt intoxicated by her proximity.

"I'll never stop looking, Bones." She looked down, contemplating. She must have come to a conclusion because she looked back up at him.

She was wearing pyjamas that belonged to Angela. Sheep danced across rainbows on the singlet she wore and the boxer shorts skimmed the tops of her thighs, bright pink to match the bows on the sheep. Her hair was loose, messy, splayed across her shoulders and over her back. Her face was pale, her eyelashes only naturally dark, not enhanced with mascara. Her lips were matte, devoid of any colour or glossiness. She'd never looked more beautiful to him.

Then her hand ran up past his temple, tracing the contours of his skull before sliding down to map out the bumps along his vertebrae. It rested, just above his shoulders, and pulled him closer to her. He tried to avoid her shoulder, stop himself touching the arm she had curled protectively against herself but she forced him into her, his body stretched along hers, forms meeting, shutting out whatever light had shone through the gap between them.

"Then I guess I can't run anymore. Not from you." Her lips were on his with the last word she spoke, muffling it, pushing it back into him.

This kiss was better than the first one they'd ever shared, the first kiss that had told him this woman was worth far more than he had to offer her. This kiss was bittersweet, warm milk, forgiveness, time lost, future stretching ahead of them all in the caress of her tongue and the softness of her lips opening against his, the breath she hummed into him.

There were still hundreds of things to figure out, such as what name would he call her next week and where they would live and how they would keep anyone who knew her before from meeting her when they were together but right now, in the darkness of the kitchen, and the smooth feel of her ribs under her skin as he ran his hand up her back, Booth was only thinking of how long he'd waited for this kiss. And the wait had been worth it.

xXx xXx xX

She rested her feet between his as they sat across from each other at the table. She was eating muesli for breakfast; he had a bagel slathered with cream cheese. Their eyes met, moved away, met again. She was in awe of how normal it could feel despite the circumstances surrounding them.

She'd decided, somewhere between Booth thinking she would leave again and his desperate search for a saucepan to make her warm milk that this man was forever hers. She still couldn't be convinced that love was more than norepinephrine and dopamine combined - but he provoked the strongest reaction in her receptors. She liked to be around him, to be with him, to be under him in a darkened room while his eyes shone down into hers, promising he would never leave her if she didn't leave him. She had been convinced that emotional ties were ephemeral and undependable but three years with a forced bond with a man who had loved her openly and outwardly had made her realise she may have been wrong. It was just the wrong man she'd been trying to convince herself she could love.

"Morning, you two." Angela walked into the kitchen, stomach preceding her. Brennan eyed it carefully and finished her spoonful of muesli before speaking.

"How long until you're due, Ange?" Angela poured hot water into a teapot.

"Two weeks to go. And I can't wait."

"If the tiny human keeps to schedule." Hodgins said, walking into the room. They kissed each other without realising it as they were passing and Brennan felt happy, felt that this, at least, hadn't been sullied by her absence.

"Of course they will. They're going to obey their mother from..." Angela stopped speaking and cocked her head, listening. "Do I hear Flight of the Conchords? That's weird."

Brennan felt her stomach turn to ice. She'd checked the bag Scott had sent in case he had decided to pack anything that he could track her with. It had been clean. But she hadn't asked Booth what happened to her phone. When it wasn't in her clothes she'd assumed it had been left behind, in Canada. They always had their phones on roam just in case it was necessary to leave in a hurry so they worked in most countries in the world; something that would have helped him track her.

Brennan hurried to the source of the noise and found the phone on the couch, tucked between a cushion, where she had been sitting last night. The number calling was blocked. She looked up. Three sets of eyes were on her, one of them darkened in alarm, the other two mildly surprised.

"Hello?" Brennan turned back from them, answering. She could turn her phone off, disassemble it, dispose of it. But she had a feeling it would be better to know what she was dealing with. To know what she might have to sacrifice next.

xXx xXx xX

Booth felt his hands ball into fists and he hid them under the table. He was sure there was only one person who would be calling. She listening more than spoke and as she moved to look outside, Booth knew. He was hoping it would take longer than that, that they could have had a head start – that he hadn't invited Angela and Hodgins into this. But they had insisted, had wanted to see her so badly. And they were the ones who had made the connection that led Booth to Canada, and to her.

Finally she hung up, turned back to face them. Her contacts were in; force of habit, he supposed. Her dark eyes were resigned, expression otherwise a tantalising blank.

"What?" Booth asked when the silence had stretched enough. He couldn't help himself; he needed to know.

"He's here. He just wants... He just wants to talk to me."

"No." Booth's tone was dark and he stood up, wanting to physically stop her from going out there to wherever he was.

"Who?" Angela looked between them both, inserting a worried glance outside. The tension in the room had immediately increased and Booth could see she could feel it in her slight shiver.

"No." Booth repeated, this time taking a step towards her. She retreated, clutching her arm protectively against her, curled and immobile to protect her damaged shoulder. Damage the man outside had done.

"What, that guy? The one who... Who shot you?" Angela took a step towards Bones now and Booth could see from the flick of her eyes towards the nearest exit that she was feeling trapped. She hadn't had to explain herself in three years to anyone and now she was being held accountable for all her actions.

"He wouldn't hurt me. He didn't mean to." Her accent, which had switched back as soon as she was back around Angela, Hodgins and himself was suddenly back to sounding more Canadian.

"That's because he was shooting at me." Booth almost yelled it, trying to get through to her. He could see her slipping back to what was easier, being taken in by this guy who had been living with her and lying to her for three years.

"I know, but..." She trailed off, straightened her shoulders despite the pain. "I have to see him, Booth. If I don't..."

"What?" Booth asked, another step closer. She was almost in touching distance.

"I don't know what he'll do." She said the last few words quietly and Booth could feel Angela and Hodgins behind him, straining to hear.

"Then we'll find out together." Booth took another step but again she evaded him.

"No, Booth. This is my fault-"

"It's not your fault! None of this is your fault!"

"He's right, sweetie." Angela moved up beside Booth, both of them presenting a united front. He couldn't see Hodgins but he imagined he wasn't far behind Angela. Bones' resolve crumpled, almost imperceptively, but Booth could tell. Her eyes, already glassy from the contacts, reflected the light even more.

"You did all this for us. You thought you were saving us and we love you for that. But let us help you this time." Angela was close enough and she reached out a hand to clasp Bones' good arm, rest gently on it. Bones shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I just..." She looked at each of them in turn, Hodgins, Angela then Booth. Her eyes locked with his longest, lingered on him.

"I can't. Let me finish this." Angela's hand dropped and Bones moved past them all to the back door. One more look back at them then she was gone.


	21. Chapter 21

Angela could see Booth start to run after her, to recapture the blonde figure rapidly crossing to the edge of the yard. She motioned to Hodgins and he grabbed the bigger man before he could get the door open.

"Hodgins, let me go." Barely restrained fury peppered his words.

"Can't do that, man."

"Booth, she has to do this alone." Angela walked closer to flank him on the other side, hoping to defuse his rage. She could imagine how he felt; he'd only just gotten to her after years of searching and now she was walking back into the arms of the enemy.

"If you love something-." Hodgins started to say.

"Do not tell me to set her free, Hodgins. She hasn't had freedom for three years – it is _not_ freedom she's walking to right now. It's a guy who shot her without thinking twice about it." Angela knew his final sentence was a lie or he would be out there chasing after her, keeping her safe. Obviously he didn't believe this Scott Smythe guy posed a threat to her safety, only to his own.

"She'll be fine, Booth." Angela hoped her words were right as they all watched Brennan standing in the sun, her hair shimmering pale gold. She'd called out to someone, now she was waiting for him to appear.

Within minutes, he stepped into view. Booth had already seen him but Angela looked on with interest, needing to see the man that had been a surrogate for everyone else in Brennan's life.

xXx xXx xX

She called out to him first, waited until he was sure there was no one ready to ambush him.

"It's okay." She said, noticing his eyes flicking between her and the cabin behind her as he walked out of the shade.

"I'd understand if it wasn't." He came close to her, touched her injured shoulder lightly. She moved it out of his reach by taking a step back.

"Rowan, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking, I knew I was losing you and I just wanted things back... The way they were."

"When you were lying to me?"

"When it was just the two of us and who we were before didn't matter." She looked at him, really looked into his eyes trying to find something, anything that would allow her to let him down gently, let him know she would never be able to be Rowan again.

"Scott..." She said. He pulled her close to him, careful of her shoulder, his hand tangling through her hair. She felt a kiss pressed on her scalp.

"The last three years have been the happiest of my life. You made me a better person." He pulled her back and looked into her eyes. "I love you."

"I loved you," she replied, hoping he would believe the lie, knowing it would bring him some comfort if he did. The woman with blonde hair had tried to love him but, in truth, her heart had always been somewhere else. She felt he understood that now.

"You're staying... With him." He looked towards the house briefly. She wondered if he could see their silhouettes through the windows; her friends she had tried so hard to keep safe. But it hadn't been enough - she hadn't been good enough at the charade to keep herself hidden.

"Yes." She knew how she had felt about Booth, even if she'd never admitted it to him, but it had been a feeling she'd pushed aside for so long, to stop it ripping her apart.

"As soon as I..." Scott again moved his hand down her shoulder, touch feather light. This time she didn't pull away. "I knew it would be goodbye."

"I'm sorry." Brennan said, her voice unexpectedly catching in her throat. Why was it so hard to say goodbye to a man who had killed before, who had lied to her? But she would never believe he had lied about loving her.

"It will take some time. But I'm going to make you safe." His eyes looked at hers, into her. She wasn't ready to die. But he was. He would try and fix it the only way he knew how, the only thing she would not do – the very thing that had driven him away from his previous life and towards her in the first place. She had a reverence for life. He had a reverence for her and he was going to go down, guns blazing, to make sure she would get out of this alive, able to move on with her life.

"You don't have to... You could just start again."

"Everyone needs a purpose in their lives. This is mine."

"I don't want..." She couldn't finish, but knew he knew.

"And I don't want you to be looking over your shoulder for me as well as them. And as soon as I can arrange it, you shouldn't have to look for them, either." He pulled aside his suit jacket and Brennan could almost feel Booth tensing from inside, where Angela and Hodgins must be holding him back. She took the manila folder he offered her and opened it. A new passport and other documents to help her start again. She opened the passport, looked at the name.

"From Temperance to Grace." He said as she ran her hand over the picture. Grace Hunter's hair was still blonde; Rowan Smythe was less recognisable than Temperance Brennan. But her eyes were light and she was American again.

"Thank you." She knew she'd keep this name. She trusted Scott enough; despite what he did before he met her she always believed people could change. Everything changed, all the time.

Then he was pulling her close again, still careful of her shoulder, his mouth finding hers comfortably, familiar in its positioning. It was their last kiss and it made her think of going to sleep knowing he was there, asking how his day was, kissing in front of the elevators at work... He'd given her a normalcy she'd never managed to gain before, a simple life her intellect had always kept at bay before. And for that she was grateful.

xXx xXx xX

Booth took a faltering step towards the door, couldn't move any closer. Angela's hand came to rest smoothly on his shoulder.

"It's a goodbye kiss, Booth," she said with the knowledge of those who can see past their own projections. "She's just saying goodbye."

She was right, as usual, because the two figures outside drew a respectable distance apart before final words were exchanged. Then he was gone, a shadow moving through the tree line, away. Booth finally found the strength to move his legs and walked to the door, opened it, stepped outside. She'd told him, last night, that she was going to stay with him. But now, in the light of day, he had to make sure she remembered, would keep her promise.

xXx xXx xXx

Hodgins moved over to stand near Angela and looked out the window at Brennan and Booth, both moving silently and slowly to meet on the stairs.

He felt dampness on his feet and looked down, then back up at Angela, stunned. Her water had broken. He started to yell out to Booth and Brennan but Angela grabbed his arm, her hand digging in, clawlike, as the first contraction moved from her spine through her stomach, pain radiating as far as her shoulders and knees.

"Just... Give them a minute." Her words were forced through clenched teeth that relaxed as soon as the pain passed.

"What? Our child just made you pee on my feet and you want to give them a minute?" Hodgins looked aghast.

"They've waited for this moment, Jack, for a long time. We've only been waiting eight and a half months. I think we can give them a minute." Jack leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"I love you, you know that?" Angela nodded, gritted her teeth as she felt another wave if pain coming on.

"If you love me, call ahead to the hospital and get them ready to give me lots of drugs. And get the hospital bag." She leant on the bench, trying not to whimper from the contractions, trying not to interrupt Booth and Brennan.

"She'd better be going to give you all the details about this because-"

"Drugs, Jack." Angela hissed. Hodgins got out his cell phone and made the call while Angela looked out onto the porch, alternating between pain and happiness.

Finally, things were the way they should be.

xXx xXx xXx

"Do you want to be alone?" He asked as soon as they were close enough to each other, wanting her to say no but expecting a resounding yes – anyone would need to take some time after saying goodbye to the man they had pretended to be married to for several years. If a goodbye was what it was.

Bones, ever unconventional, shook her head. She sank onto the step, tugged at his pants leg to make him sit down as well.

Hodgins and Angela were inside the house, leaving just the two of them, listening to the sound of wind through the trees. Bones looked up at the sky and reached into one eye, then the other, removing her contact lenses.

"He said goodbye, Booth." Somehow she knew what he needed to hear before he said anything. For once he was the speechless one, unsure of what words would be acceptable in this situation, what words would help make it right.

He remained mute while she tucked the contact lenses into her pocket, never to be used again, and turned to him, spoke. "Thank you."

"For..?" He started, then trailed off. Her hand moved up, over his neck, the feeling of the caress already familiar to him. It was something he wanted to be used to.

"For never giving up." He knew, somehow, that she meant never giving up on either of them. He thought she could almost sense the memory her words prompted, the image of him sitting alone in a darkened apartment, gun in hand, wishing he had the courage to make a decision. But there had always been Parker, and there had always been the hope that he would find her and she would sit across from him on a weather hewn top step with the sun in her eyes and love caught in her throat.

"Nobody who knows you, Bones, could ever give up on you." His words weren't enough to give an answer she deserved but they would have to do, for now. He had time to come up with something to tell her how much he needed her in his life.

They sat in silence for a while, her hand absentmindedly gathered in his, fingertips touching.

"You have to think of another nickname." She said finally as she leaned into him, watched the blue of the sky interrupted by swooping birds, the wind rattle the leaves from the trees. Watched life going on. "I don't work with bones anymore."

Booth tucked an arm around her, breathed in her familiar smell as she snuggled closer before looking into the sky with her.

"You'll always be Bones to me, Bones."

xXx xXx xXx

_Finit_.

_Thanks for reading._

_Author's Notes next chapter if you're up for it. _

_Also, reviews = love._


	22. Author's Notes

**Author's Notes**

First and foremost, apologies for the excruciating length of time it took to get this fic published in its entirety. To everyone who gave up on it – I don't blame you. I moved cities and countries several times in the writing of it and felt increasingly uninspired by each new season of Bones. I also took some time away from writing to drink and have my own dramas (necessary, but not the best idea). But eventually I got around to writing most of the rest of this while living in the wonderful Thailand. So thanks, if you started reading it at the start and came back for the end. I appreciate it. And if you want to download the whole fic (or any other multi-chapter fic) for reading on a portable device, this website is awesome: fanfictionloader _dot_ appspot _dot_ com

Secondly, thank you to everyone who reviewed. I love you all! I didn't want the story flow interrupted so I didn't prompt for reviews (except for one chapter where I just couldn't resist, but that's been amended now) – so thanks to everyone who put up reviews just because. Seriously, that's what I live off. Knowing that people are reading this and enjoying it and that it's making you feel something. Special thanks to Braelyn Rae, CampRockfan4ever, EmLovesYouu (hello, fellow Aussie!) and Tartantrace whose names popped up a lot in reviews – thanks for that . And to CampRockfan4ever who put up a review that was just "DUN DUN DUN DUN" on chapter 6 -you made me laugh out loud!

If you haven't reviewed, please, now's your chance. I try to respond to all reviewers and **I really, really love hearing what you think about what I've written.** Also thanks to those who added this fic to their favourites. I'm really, truly flattered because there are a lot (thousands) of fics out there and it means a lot that you're reading (and liking) this one.

Now to the story – it all came about simply because of a promo picture of the genetically endowed, absolutely gorgeous Emily Deschanel. She was blonde and I wondered how to give Brennan blonde hair. This is the result. Surely there are one-shot ways to do it but why take the easy way out when you can turn it into a novel? Really. Besides, who knew it would turn into such a mammoth piece. I was thinking it would be resolve d in 14 chapters but the characters just kept bloody going. Hopefully it lived up to your expectations and you felt the ending did it justice.

I don't have a beta reader, or a proof reader, and I'm pretty bad at checking what I write, researching facts, and all those other things that good writers do. And I'm a comma whore. So you've likely come across some mistakes, or extra commas. If you send me an email or mention whatever irks you in the review section I will amend. Apologies for my professionalism comma lack of.

There are a few plot holes that are glaringly obvious – would Scott and Rowan have gone directly to the address from the airport? Probably not, I'm guessing there should have been some kind of removalist setup rather than two weary travellers with light luggage. Would Brennan's father have let her keep the phone and make a later call? Would Brennan really have given up that easily and left Booth behind, never to make contact again? Would Booth have left her to meet Scott alone in the last chapter? Actually, I think he would have – he was still tentative around her. Anyway, that's why it's a fanfiction... I'm not getting paid the big bucks to repair holes in my plot (although there are some things in season 5 I'd like the big bucks writers to check and change – facts, people! You wrote it the first time around, just look that shit up.) And did Brennan and Booth have sex in chapter 20 (or, as Booth might say, make love *eye roll*)? That's up to you to decide. Let me know what you think.

I also had trouble keeping Brennan from calling Booth any time in the three year period they were apart. Hopefully chapter five convinced you why she didn't call him; she believed in what her father told her and she was committed to disappear. Once she's committed, she's in it for the long run. I didn't want to spend as much time in her Canadian life but it was a good chance to see how Brennan might change if she wasn't all those things she uses to shield herself from the world; best selling author, world renowned forensic anthropologist, FBI sidekick (and I know she'd resent being called a sidekick). This is her being able to be something else, as her and Scott's later conversation reveals. Hopefully it wasn't too OOC. I did try to keep up the explanations on how Brennan has changed – picked up idioms and pop culture references and so on. She's a genius. Logically, she should be able to teach herself how to be a different person. Let Season 6, Episode 3 'Maggots in the Meathead' be an example of that (it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Seriously – "random, y'all" had to be my favourite line in the entire episode!)

While this fic was started with the best intentions of being finished in season two, it wasn't until just before season six that my muse returned (or my laziness receded somewhat, or the time on my hands grew) so I had several more years of Booth/Brennan interaction and Squint drama to choose to incorporate or not. Unfortunately that means Sweets is missing (not a deal breaker but he is growing on me), but the upside is that Zach never went to jail. But I did mix and match some of it – you'll notice Sully still sailed away on his ship. And there are a few little quotes thrown in that the characters have actually come out with in later seasons.

I am Australian so while I've tried to put in as many 'Americanisms' as I can bear, the spelling is likely very British English. You may also have noticed we spell (and say) arse. It felt sacrilegious to change it.

And here's one little bit I wrote but could never incorporate into any of the Booth-sections, but I didn't want it to just die because I'm kind of attached to it so I'm shoving it in as an end note: _It consumed him in the way that her parent's disappearance might have consumed her if she hadn't managed to channel her curiosity into a more noble cause. Or to grow up so beautifully without them. He knew he still had growing to do. Still had his cosmic balance sheet to even the columns out in. Still had so much he needed to get her opinion on. And without her, none of these things could be completed properly._

Finally, it's no secret, I do not, never will, actually don't even dream of owning Bones, Booth and the whole Scooby Gang. I do own Scott and imagine him as a Simon Baker type, but slightly more tan, taller and with darker hair.

Bloody hell, that was nearly longer than an Oscar acceptance speech. Thanks again for reading! I'm leaving you with the lyrics to the song which, if fics had an anthem, would definitely be the anthem for this (just swap out ten days for three years and we're set). Except it's far too beautiful to be called an anthem. Written and performed (and therefore copyright – no infringement intended) by Missy Higgins, I'm pretty sure you can find this song on iTunes or with some creative googling. It's from her _On a Clear Night_ album, which I highly recommend if you need some inspiring writing music. It's a beautiful album.

_So we've put an end to it this time._

_I'm no longer yours and you're no longer mine._

_You said this hill looks far too steep_

_If I'm not even sure it's me you wanna keep._

_And it's been ten days without you in my reach,_

_And the only time I've touched you is in my sleep._

_But time has changed nothing at all -_

_You're still the only one that feels like home._

_I've tried cutting the ropes and_

_I let you go but you're still the only one_

_That feels like home._

_You won't talk me into it next time,_

_If I'm going away your heart's coming too._

_'Cos I miss your hands I miss your face._

_When I get back let's disappear without a trace._

_'Cos it's been ten days without you in my reach,_

_And the only time I've touched you is in my sleep._

_But time has changed nothing at all -_

_You're still the only one that feels like home._

_I've tried cutting the ropes,_

_Tried letting go but you're still the only one_

_That feels like home._

_So tell me, did you really think..._

_Oh tell me, did you really think I had gone _

_when you couldn't see me anymore?_

_When you couldn't..._

_'Cos baby time has changed nothing at all -_

_You're still the only one that feels like home._

_And I've tried cutting the ropes,_

_I let you go but you're still the only one_

_That feels like home, yeah,_

_You're still the only one that feels like home,_

_You're still the only one I'm gonna love._

_Oh yeah..._


End file.
